U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR AMENDS METHODOLOGY FOR CALCULATING ADVERSE EFFECT WAGE RATES FOR H-2A WORKERS


By Casey Reynolds, PhD


Te H-2A Temporary Agricultural Program—often called the H-2A visa program—provides a legal means to bring foreign-born workers to the United States to perform seasonal farm labor on a temporary basis, for a period of up to ten months. One of the clearest indicators of the scarcity of farm labor is the fact that the number of H-2A positions requested and approved has increased more than sevenfold in the past 17 years, from just over 48,000 positions certified in fiscal year 2005 to around 371,000 in fiscal year 2022. (See Figure 1).


Employers in the H-2A program must demonstrate that efforts to recruit U.S. workers were not successful, and they must also pay a state-specific minimum wage, which may not be lower than the average wage for crop and livestock workers, known as the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR). But more on that later…


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TPI Turf News July/August 2023


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