With record-low unemployment in Maine, many seasonal businesses are struggling to know how to staff for the summer because of the lack of temporary seasonal workers. In past years, the H-2B seasonal temporary worker program has allowed businesses to fill vacant peak-season jobs if local workers were not available.

Because of an outdated and arbitrary cap, combined with a lottery process, there were not enough H-2B visas for our hotel in 2018. So despite having the same application and need that were approved and fulfilled in 2017, our fate now rests on whether the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security decides to release additional H-2B visas.

The H-2B program is costly and time consuming. The program requires employers to undertake extensive recruitment of American workers, gain approval from four government agencies and pay a premium wage.

H-2B workers are not immigrants. They provide an opportunity for U.S. businesses to operate at a greater capacity, retain their full-time workers and contribute to their local economies. Every H-2B worker is estimated by the American Enterprise Institute to create and sustain 4.64 American jobs. It has been the only way for us to find enough temporary seasonal staff.

By law, additional visas could be released by DHS, and I still have hope that it will. However, when given the same authority last year, relief did not come until late July, and then only 15,000 additional visas were released nationally – too few and, with the process taking well into August, too late to help seasonal businesses.

The fate of many Maine businesses this spring rests now on a single decision by the secretary of Homeland Security. Let’s hope that decision is made in time for Maine’s season.

Allyson Cavaretta

general manager, Meadowmere Resort

Ogunquit