Snow Shovelers

Work description

DETAILED STATEMENT OF TEMPORARY NEED 2026-2027 Dates of Need for H-2B Snow Shovelers will be 11/17/2026 to 04/15/2027. Down To Earth Outdoor Services, LLC is a family owned and operated landscape contractor that has been in business since 2014. We are a year-round company with two distinct lines of work: landscaping services during the warm months and snow and ice removal during the winter. Our place of business is located at 1416 Industry Drive, Traverse City, MI 49686, and our crews travel daily to job sites located in Grand Traverse, Leelanau, and Antrim Counties, Michigan. The temporary workers requested in this petition are needed only for our snow removal operations. That work is the removal of snow and ice from the sidewalks, entrances, driveways, and parking areas of the commercial and residential properties we service, together with the application of salt, sand, and other de-icing materials to those surfaces. It is performed from mid-November through mid-April to coincide with the winter snow and ice season in our service area, and it cannot be performed at any other time of year. We have serviced snow removal accounts in this area for years: our attested sales and payroll records show snow removal work in each of the last three winters, and the customer agreements provided with this petition cover the twenty properties accepted for the most recent season. I. Temporary Need To assist in the determination of whether our company's need is consistent with the USCIS definition of temporary need, we are including the following information: Work duties will be consistent with those stated on the USDOL ETA Form 9142B and the USCIS I-129 Petition for Nonimmigrant Worker. These duties are evidenced in our customer agreements and in the attested payroll and sales records provided with this petition. Duties the requested workers would be performing are consistent with those described in the US Department of Labor ETA Form 9141, PWD Case Number P-400-26156-988602, SOC 37-2011. Our need for these workers is seasonal, and Section III below addresses each element of the seasonal need definition individually. Based on the analysis described later in this document, our need for 4 temporary H-2B workers is fully supported by our workload for the 2026-2027 snow season, and that workload substantiates the need for the requested workers throughout the entire period of proposed employment, i.e., 11/17/2026 through 04/15/2027, at the stated hourly wage and number of hours each week. II. Operations Our snow removal season follows the same cycle every year, and it is driven by freezing weather rather than by snowfall alone. In the first half of November, before the season begins, the properties to be serviced are prepared: surfaces are pretreated with salt and ice-melt products in anticipation of the first snow and ice events, and trucks are loaded with de-icing products and snow removal equipment. Freezing weather and snow arrive in the middle of the month, and that is when the season, and our need for the requested workers, begins. From then until spring, the properties we service must be cleared and treated on demand, storm by storm, because our customers require their sidewalks, entrances, driveways, and parking areas to be passable and safe whenever snow or ice accumulates. The need is not limited to days with snowfall: on mornings when rain, dew, or melted snow freezes on pavement, walkways must be salted whether or not any new snow has fallen, because an untreated frozen surface is a safety hazard for anyone who walks on it. Our crews work early shifts, beginning at 4:00 a.m., so that every property is safe and passable before the business day starts. As the season winds down in April, the requested workers perform the close-out work of the season: responding to the season's last snow and ice events, clearing residual salt, sand, slush, and winter debris from lots and walks, and cleaning the equipment before it is put up for the sea