Labor Deputy Secretary Cinta Kaipat said they are planning to increase from 35 percent to 50 percent of U.S. citizen employment to limit the job categories which the exemption applies.
She said the Labor Department started the consultation process four months ago to further proposed changes in the exemption.
“It is very important that labor regulations will not cause businesses the kind of increased costs and burdens that contribute to closures,” Kaipat said in her Interim Progress Report number 10 on the Implementation of PL 15-108.
The regulation took effect on July 1, 2009, Kaipat said, adding that “this change will cut back the exemption very substantially, and Employment Services is enforcing this cutback very vigorously.”
In her previous report, she said that Labor Office is making good progress in placing U.S. citizens in jobs.
Since October 2008, she said, they have processed transfer request for 615 foreign workers who have been displaced in their jobs by U.S. citizen hires.
As the Legislature gave the Labor Department the regulatory power to phase out the small business exemption, Kaipat said they now required all retail businesses that accept food stamps to have at least one U.S. citizen employee.
This year, she added, they have increased the requirement so that all small businesses with fewer than five employees, of any kind must have at least one full-time U.S. citizen employee.
“We are devoting increased enforcement resources to ensuring that this requirement is met,” she said.
