CODY – For owner Brenda O’Shea, a good summer at A Western Rose Motel requires one factor no matter how many customers she gets: employees.
“Without them, I’ll either have to close part of my inventory or the few employees I have will burn them out to the point where they have to go,” she said.
Although their customers have returned in full swing after a minor downturn in 2020, local hotel and motel owners are still not out of the woods. The supply of H-2B and J-1 visa workers, a pool that many Cody business owners use, remains severely reduced and not available at all for some owners.
“I know I’m not the only seasonal business facing this challenge,” said O’Shea. “Hotel rooms are not being sold because of a lack of staff and rising wage costs.”
The purpose of both J-1 and H-2B workers is to bridge the gap between overseas and American communities and fill jobs that are hard-to-find native workers to fill. Their attendance was absent in 2020 as no J-1 workers were admitted and about 32% fewer H-2B workers admitted due to concerns about the coronavirus.
H-2B staff are available this year, but their approval has been delayed and delayed, leading to backlogs on immigrant visas, according to the U.S. Department of State’s Consular Office.
From June 2020 to March 31, former President Donald Trump had banned the entry of all new H-2B people with limited exceptions. Even so, in 2020 the US Department of Labor reported the highest rate of H-2B vacancies for US workers in history.
The administration of President Joe Biden expired Trump’s suspension of H-2B visa workers on March 31.
In mid-April, the Ministry of Labor announced that it would raise the upper limit for these seasonal visas for the second half of fiscal year 2021 from 66,000 to 88,000. The judgment came into effect on May 25th.
The supplementary visas include 16,000 visas only available to returning H-2B workers from fiscal years 2018, 2019, or 2020, and the remaining 6,000 visas for residents of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Employers who claim that if they cannot hire more H-2B employees before the end of the fiscal year they are likely to suffer irreparable harm can file an application with the DOL.
Bill Garlow, owner of the Cody Best Western, said he has had H-2B staff from Jamaica in the past.
“They are really nice people,” he said.
He’s been guaranteed 17 H-2B workers that year, but he’s still waiting to see if he can get one of the other 23 he’s applied for.
“We really need her badly,” he said. “We’re in a really difficult position if I don’t get it.”
A cheaper option for businesses, J-1 workers are an even rarer commodity this summer not just in Cody but across the country.
A major hurdle preventing those interested in these positions was the lack of access to foreign embassies to fill out the required J-1 visa. Embassies in certain countries have limited opening hours or are still closed because of the virus. O’Shea said she was told that around 7,000 applicants from Turkey alone are waiting to come.
“I sent the (US) ambassador to Turkey a message asking his office to go back to work,” said O’Shea. “There was a post on the ambassador’s Facebook page about a ranger exchange program. I’m not saying it’s not important, but how come there is a park ranger exchange program and we don’t get the people we need to work? “
There are travel restrictions on people from 33 different countries including China, O’Shea’s usual source for J-1 employees. She said there is a chance she could take in some workers from Mongolia, but she is not holding her breath.
However, J-1 employees who worked in America in 2019 or were interviewed for 2020 will be eligible to work this summer if they are not from any of the 33 restricted countries.
Kings Inn Assistant Manager Levi Helvey said they could have gotten a couple of J-1’s for his West Strip hotel, but their arrival was delayed by about a month.
“Everyone has a hard time getting them,” he said.
While H-2B employees may be a better choice than J-1 employees, they also come at a cost.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the employer must either advance all visa, border crossing, and visa-related costs to H-2B employees and pay them directly, or reimburse all of these costs in the first week of work. The employer must pay the repatriation and daily allowance for all employees who work until the end of the work assignment or who are dismissed for any reason before this time has expired.
O’Shea said she cannot afford these costs and is not allowed to hire these workers because her shop won’t open until May.
“It’s not something that a seasonal motel on an economy budget can afford,” she said.
She said she was also frustrated with how complicated the processes are to get these foreign workers and left her frustration recently at a meeting with U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis staff.
With the pipeline for foreign workers shrinking sharply, O’Shea, Helvey, and Garlow have turned their attention to native workers.
“Cody is a town of nearly 10,000 people,” said O’Shea. “Remove the elderly, the children, the students, whether it’s high school or college, who don’t work, the professionals, and those who work in the hospitality industry all year round. That doesn’t leave a lot of people for seasonal business. “
Garlow has raised wages and is running a special promotion where employees earn an additional $ 2 an hour, which is used towards an end-of-season bonus. He also says he can continue to offer employment during the off-season.
However, he said his efforts have been thwarted by certain companies offering higher basic wages for kitchen workers.
Many companies in the Cody area go out of their way to promote what they pay their workers. For example, the Comfort Inn has a prominent sign that says housekeepers are priced at $ 15 an hour.
O’Shea said she has even reached out to friends and family in other states to recruit workers, but to no avail. She advertises her motel job as an entrepreneurial opportunity.
“You can learn all about running your own business,” she said.
What is even more frustrating for her is that many locals have expressed interest in a job, but only if she agrees to take it under the table.
“It’s really sad that we have to bring people from another country because our own citizens are concerned about the benefits they get from the people who actually work and pay taxes,” said O’Shea.
