July 11, 2018 — On June 30, U.S. Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta and the Alaskan Congressional delegation traveled to King Salmon to meet with seafood processors and transportation companies from Bristol Bay and around the state.
“I’ve always heard you don’t have the population to staff these up,” Acosta said. “Flying in, I have a different view of whether or not you have the population to – it is literally impossible.”
As the meeting got underway, it became clear that one issue was on everyone’s mind: H-2B visas.
Finding people willing to work long, grueling hours in remote locations is challenging. Many companies recruit year-round. They start by reaching out to Alaskans and workers from the lower 48. But while 65 to 70 percent of industry workers in Bristol Bay are domestic, processors can’t hire enough people from the U.S. alone. So, they turn to workers from abroad.
Glenn Reed is president of Pacific Seafoods Processors Association, which represents many Bristol Bay processors. He said that recruiting begins on a state and national level.
“We do start our recruiting with job fairs and working with the state of Alaska seafood employment program to hire Alaskans. We always get a few people out of Alaska, but not a very large number. I would say that fifty out of job fairs and the state employment program would be a large number. We always hire whatever workers we can out of Alaska first, and we’re quickly in the need for quite a few more workers than that – thousands.”