The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has recently issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) requesting public input on its proposal to revise the process used to calculate hourly Adverse Effect Wage Rates (AEWR) for the H-2A visa program.
AEWR is the minimum hourly amount employers must pay H-2A employees and workers in corresponding employment to avoid negatively affecting the earnings of similarly employed workers in the United States. The proposed adjustments would allow the DOL to better execute its statutory mandate, a DOL press release said.
The DOL also proposes that any other agricultural jobs not adequately covered in the existing Farm Labor Survey data use statewide or national average annual hourly salary for the occupational classification, as published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics Survey program.
“For field and livestock worker occupations, which represent the vast majority of agricultural jobs, the proposed rule continues to use the average annual hourly wage for field and livestock workers (combined) for the state or region, as reported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Labor Survey (FLS),” the release said.
If the employment opportunity encompasses more than one occupational classification, the department advises that the AEWR be set at the highest salary available for all of the relevant occupations, according to the release.
The Immigration and Nationality Act established the H-2A visa classification for workers “having a residence in a foreign country which he has no intention of abandoning who is coming temporarily to the United States to perform agricultural labor or services… of temporary or a seasonal nature,” the NPRM said.
The DOL requests that interested parties submit their written comments on the proposed rule by January 31, 2022. Comments may be submitted online using the Federal eRulemaking Portal.
The complete text of the NPRM has been published and made available for viewing in the Federal Register.
