Shutdown Leaves Restaurants Without a Tool to Vet Status of Workers
Restaurants hungry for workers say they’ll keep hiring even though a government system to help them weed out undocumented employees is, ironically, not working because of the government shutdown over immigration.
E-Verify, a web-based Department of Homeland Security program to confirm recently hired employees are authorized to work in the U.S., is one of the government services that’s not running amid the standoff between President Donald Trump and Congress. Companies trying to use it are met with a red banner: “Due to the lapse in federal funding, this website will not be actively managed.”
There’s no way restaurants can slow hiring now, even with an increased risk of bringing on undocumented workers, said Trent Colford Sr., regional director of operations at Hamra Enterprises, which operates 90 Wendy’s locations. The industry is facing a severe worker shortage amid a low unemployment rate, fewer young people in the workforce and competition from gig-economy employers.
“We’re definitely exposed, and there’s an increased risk,” Colford said in an interview. “Of the people that we’ll hire in this time frame, 95 percent of them will be OK. So there’s probably that 5 percent that will be at risk.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-09/shutdown-leaves-restaurants-without-tool-to-vet-legal-workers?srnd=politics-vp
