Ocean City sees shortage of J1 visa workers, may recruit from Puerto Rico

OCEAN CITY, Md. – Ocean City officials say businesses are experiencing staffing shortages and are in talks with organizations in Puerto Rico about workers to the resort town.

We’re told Ocean City usually has four thousand J1 workers and 12-thousand seasonal positions. Right now, there are a couple hundred J1 workers in the resort town who got their visas before the program was suspended. However, hospitality officials say businesses are still struggling to fill positions like housekeepers at hotels as well as line cooks and dishwashers at restaurants. Although it’s already July, officials say they are trying to work every angle to help businesses and believe the season may extend a little longer this year.

“We don’t think that our season is over at the end of August or Labor Day. Given if we have good weather, September and October could potentially be very strong months. So I think there will be plenty of people open in the fall that will need help,” says Susan Jones with the Ocean City Hotel-Motel Restaurant Association.

Jones says they haven’t brought any workers from Puerto Rico yet but they’re actively working on it. She tells 47 ABC they decided Puerto Rico may be a good place to recruit workers from because they have a similar hospitality industry to the United States and many people who live there speak English.

As for the hundreds of open positions, some places were able to hire residents from Snow Hill and Pocomoke during a job fair in June. Worcester County is hosting an open air job fair on July 29th in Pocomoke.