Why It's Getting Harder to Hire Foreign Workers

By Nick Leiber, Bloomberg Businessweek

Maureen Torrey, the 11th-generation owner of a vegetable farm in upstate New York, doesn't have much in common with Atul Jain, the New Delhi-born founder of 14-year-old Global Software Solutions, an IT consulting firm outside Washington, D.C. Yet both say they're suffering from an increase in government obstacles to hiring foreigners. "We're in a crisis situation as we see no action by Washington," says Torrey, 58, who recently cut back the land she plants by more than 10 percent, to 6,700 acres.

For years both companies have hired foreigners on temporary visas because they say they can't find Americans with the skills they need. Now they're struggling because it's getting harder to obtain visas for potential employees. Torrey Farms has lost money for the past two years because Torrey says she can't bring in enough workers to tend her crops. Jain says sales will be flat this year and he may have to send work overseas. "We let opportunities go, our workforce shrank, and our profit and revenue have gone down," says Jain, 44, who can't find Americans with tech skills and the desire to spend months at far-flung job sites.

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