Firms in Utah Preparing to Hire Mexicans

Caracas,
Sunday September 4,2011

DENVER – Utah businessmen are preparing to hire potentially thousands of Mexican temporary workers.

Representatives of several chambers of commerce and business groups met last week in Utah with local public officials and representatives of the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon to learn about a new state law, HB466, and about the procedure for processing H2B visas.

The entry into force of HB466 would allow businessmen to hire up to 16,000 temporary workers from Nuevo Leon, the state with which the Utah government signed an agreement to establish a pilot program.

Although the federal government still must give its final approval to the initiative because the preestablished number of 66,000 H2B visas has already been exceeded for this year, businessmen from Salt Lake City, Provo and other cities attended seminars to learn how to process those visas.

Ben Wallace, assistant general manager of a Resorts West luxury rental establishment in Park City, told reporters that the seminars sparked a high level of interest because “we’re not finding enough people in our areaâ€