Seasonal Labor Crisis Looms Large - The Edge from the National Association of Landscape Professionals

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Seasonal Labor Crisis Looms Large

Last week, many NALP members received devastating news. They were informed by the Department of Labor that they would not receive the H-2B workers they were counting on. This year, due to an unprecedented volume of applications, over 60% of seasonal businesses were unsuccessful in getting workers through the H-2B program. The pending seasonal labor crisis we have been warning Congress and the administration about has now gone from a possibility to a reality.

As we have seen all to well over the last year, Congress does not seem to do anything until a situation approaches crisis mode. Fortunately, that just might work in our favor this time. There still is not a budget in place yet for 2018 so we are working hard to get cap-relief language included in the next spending bill. Congress has a March 23 deadline to either pass a budget or kick the can down the road once again. In any event, the next few weeks are critical. NALP will continue to relentlessly lobby for 2018 cap-relief and we hope to engage as many members in our efforts as possible. We encourage you to join in our efforts by using the NALP Member Advocacy Center to contact your members of Congress and by looking for alerts in the coming days and weeks about how you can get involved! For more information, contact Paul Mendelsohn.