Proposal to Strengthen U.S. Recruitment

Although the United States seems to be focused on how to create new jobs and keep manufacturing jobs at home, the U.S. Department of Labor also is trying to see how it can ensure that Americans get every opportunity to land U.S. jobs.  Immigrant and migrant workers are responsible for a huge percentage of work in the United States that U.S. citizens don’t know how to perform or are unwilling to do.  The Department of Labor is hopeful that more U.S. citizens will jump at the opportunity to work in these fields if they had more knowledge of them.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration and its Wage and Hour Division are proposing a rule that seeks to change the H-2B temporary nonagricultural worker program.  The H-2B program is the one that allows 66,000 foreign workers every year into the U.S. on a visa to work where qualified U.S. workers are not available.

Like many proposals these days, the proposed changes are all about transparency. The proposals aims to:

• creating a national job registry for all H-2B job postings
• require employers to provide proof that they made every effort to recruit U.S. workers
• reinstate the role of state workforce agencies in providing expertise on local labor market conditions and recruitment patterns
• increase the amount of time during which U.S. workers can be identified
• force employers to pay for transportation costs and fees of U.S. workers

If this proposal of the U.S. Department of Labor passes, many employers may need the help of professional recruiters in order to ensure that their recruitment practices adhere to the new H-2B revisions.