GOVERNMENT’S overseas hotel employment programme has been handicapped by the cap on the number of visas issued annually by the United States.

“There is a visa challenge that we are having with the hospitality programme,” Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security Alvin McIntosh told a meeting of the Public Administrations and Appropriations Committee of Parliament Wednesday.

McIntosh, who told the committee that the farmwork side of the US programme was going ‘quite well’, said the success of the hospitality programme has been stymied because of the visa quota.

“.The 66,000 visas (issued annually) are exhausted before the time that our workers are required to go up, so the number of hotel workers going up the US has been declining and really that is a big challenge,” McIntosh told the House Committee.

He said in the past that Jamaica has been able to influence the US Congress to amend the relevant immigration law which would enable workers who had travelled three years before to be exempted.

“In recent times there have not been any amendments and to that extent the 66,000 visas are exhausted before the time,” he said.

“We have to be able as soon as the legislation is dealt with to be in a position to send up the people,” he added.

In the meantime, McIntosh said the ministry has tried to maintain a pool of workers to enable faster processing as soon as job opportunities are identified.

Meanwhile, he said the Canadian work programme has been ‘doing very well’ with increases being recorded there.