Biden Ends Guestworker Pause Despite Dire Economic Outlook

On the peak of the pandemic, then-President Donald Trump correctly paused sure guestworker admissions, citing widespread unemployment because of the financial affect of the COVID-19 pandemic. In January, President Trump signed an extension of those protections till March 31.

Regardless of his continued warnings that the pandemic is much from over, President Joe Biden determined to let these protections expire.

The proclamation banned new admissions of guestworkers in
the H-1B, H-2B, L-1, and J-1 classes. All of those employees compete with
Individuals for openings and wages all through totally different sectors of the economic system. Guestworkers
within the H-2B and J-1 applications work in non-skilled, non-agricultural sectors –
primarily jobs in hospitality, leisure, landscaping, and development.
Guestworkers within the H-1B and L-1 applications work in white-collar roles in
every little thing from tech firms to accounting and finance corporations.

The choice by President Biden to restart admissions in these applications is untimely. The nationwide unemployment price in February 2021 stood at 6.2 % – almost double what it was in February 2020, at 3.5 %. FAIR argued that the White Home shouldn’t even take into account lifting this pause till the unemployment price returned to its pre-COVID low of three.5 %. Biden’s determination to rescind this pause is divorced from the financial actuality on the bottom, the place thousands and thousands of Individuals stay unemployed.

The scenario is far worse for these within the backside quartile of the economic system. Unemployment within the backside quartile stood at a stunning 23 % in February 2021. With almost 1 in 4 of these employees with out a paycheck, it makes little sense why the Biden administration would all of a sudden enable tens of hundreds of unskilled H-2B and J-1 employees entry to the labor market.

The outlook for faculty graduates is grim as nicely. Tens of millions of American school college students graduate in Could, robbed of profession festivals and on-campus recruiting that occurred earlier than the pandemic. These college students will now compete head-to-head with H-1B, L-1, and OPT guestworkers for restricted jobs the place American college students already stand at a drawback given the truth that employers pay guestworkers considerably lower than Individuals in the identical roles.

The timing for this determination merely couldn’t have come at a
worse time for American employees nonetheless struggling below the financial fallout of
the pandemic. There are just too many Individuals out of labor to justify
rescinding the guestworker pause. President Biden had an opportunity to point out the
American working class that he stood in solidarity with them – quite than with
company pursuits – by extending this guestworker pause. As a substitute, he did the
reverse.