Employers seeking H-2B seasonal guestworker visas will now have to go through at least two separate lotteries before they can actually employ the foreign workers.
Starting July 3, the Labor Department will be running its own lottery to determine how it selects H-2B applications for processing, The lottery will be applied to applications seeking workers whose employers want them to start on or after Oct. 1.
The move comes after immensely high demand for the visas crashed the DOL’s online filing system Jan. 1. On that day—the first day employers could apply for visas for workers starting April 1—the agency ...