Tridge summary
Due to widespread unemployment and the financial incentives of pandemic relief in Puerto Rico, local farmers are facing a severe labor shortage. To mitigate this issue, farmers have imported Mexican workers under the H-2A visa program, as highlighted by the employment of a group of 21 Chiapas residents at Finca González in Guánica. This situation has drawn attention to the significant difference in wages and working conditions between agricultural jobs and the benefits received by the unemployed, with many Puerto Ricans finding it more profitable to remain unemployed. The agricultural community in Puerto Rico is advocating for the importation of additional temporary agricultural workers to address the acute labor shortage, attributing it to a combination of federal aid, hurricanes, earthquakes, and a decade-long economic crisis that has led to a 14.3% population decrease since 2010.
Disclaimer:The above summary was generated by Tridge's proprietary AI model for informational purposes.
Original content
AFP. Islanders live off the help of the US due to the pandemic and no longer work for little pay. Mexicans work in the packing plant, wash bananas and tie up tomato plants / Photo: AFP. GUÁNICA. With crops in danger of being lost due to lack of labor, some farmers imported Mexican workers to Puerto Rico, a US island with rampant unemployment but where receiving the bonuses for the pandemic is more profitable than working the fields. At Finca González, in the municipality of Guánica in the southwest of this island, a group of Mexicans work in the packing plant; another washes the bananas and a third ties the tomato plants to the stakes. "This is very nice. For those of us who are used to it, this is perfect ”, says Abigain Sebastián, 22, without looking up from the tomatoes she is tying quickly. "In Mexico the most I could do is seven dollars a day." In Puerto Rico, on the other hand, Sebastián receives $ 7.25 per hour, which is the federal minimum wage in the United States. "It is ...
Source: Inforural
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