“After absorbing nearly half of the destruction caused by the pandemic shutdowns, the leisure and hospitality industry is still in a deep hole, down 2.5 million jobs from early last year,” reports Politico. ‘There simply are not enough workers to fill those slots,’ said Lynn Minges, president and CEO of the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association, who estimated the industry has about 70,000 openings in the state. ‘And there are a number of factors that contribute to that but obviously one of those is the challenge in getting immigrant workers to fill some of the jobs.'”
“Restaurants and hotels are reducing opening hours, closing for certain days each week and limiting their guests due to a lack of staff, Minges added, which is also resulting in fatigue and burnout among workers who have to pick up the slack. Robert Melvin, director of government affairs for the The Virginia Restaurant, Lodging & Travel Association, said the lack of access to foreign workers is ‘really holding everyone back in a big way’ in the commonwealth.”
“Critics of the temporary seasonal work programs say they take jobs away from American workers, can undercut U.S. wages and may lead to exploitation. A bipartisan pair of senators — Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Ill.) — said a work visa expansion announced by President Joe Biden in April was premature. But business groups representing restaurants, retailers, theme parks and other industries that rely on summertime demand have been pressing Congress to offer more guest worker visas under the H-2B seasonal guest worker visa program. Employers also use H-2B visas to fill a range of temporary seasonal jobs, from seafood processing and forestry-related jobs to various non-agricultural work like landscaping.”
The great ugly, unspoken truth about many of these jobs is that many of the Trump supporters who complain loudest about foreign workers aren’t capable of maintaining service industry jobs. Many have difficulty being courteous towards minority and LGBTQ customers. Businesses are struggling to find workers because so many Americans have been so radicalized by right-wing propaganda that they are no longer behaviorally fit to work in the hospitality or retail industries. Many of the companies complaining of a labor shortage make campaign contributions to politicians and Political Action Committees, or run advertisements on right wing propaganda outlets that promote conspiracy theories and political messaging which led to the current situation. An open discussion of how the current labor shortage is largely a result of corporate political activity via groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) may help prod American companies to rethink who they make political contributions to, and where they run advertisements.