Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club files requests to hire 61 temporary foreign workers

The Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, has filed requests to hire 61 seasonal foreign workers to staff the resort during its busy season, according to the U.S. Department of Labor records.

The employees would be hired under the H-2B visa program, which allows employers to hire nonimmigrant guest workers on a temporary basis when there's a shortage of qualified Americans to fill the positions.

Mar-a-Lago is a private resort owned by President Donald Trump.

What type of workers is the resort looking to hire and when?

One request seeks 40 waiters and waitresses who would earn an hourly wage of $12.68 with the possibility of overtime at $19.02 an hour.

The second request is for 21 cooks at $13.31 per hour, with an overtime rate of $19.97 an hour.

The workers would be hired to work from October 2018 to May 2019.

Is there a shortage of workers?

Yes, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

While the overall unemployment rate in the West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Delray Beach area is 3.3 percent, the rate for leisure and hospitality jobs sits at an extremely low level of 1.1 percent in that region.

Trump told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that it "is very hard to get seasonal workers in Florida" for the five-month period called the Palm Beach season, according to the New York Daily News.

“So we tend to get help from different places, including Europe," Trump said, according to the Daily News.

Florida's unemployment rate was 3.8 percent in May. Similarly, the U.S. unemployment sits at 4 percent in June, up slightly from 3.8 percent in the prior month.

What else?

The guest worker program is open to nationals from certain countries who meet the eligibility requirements of Homeland Security.

The temporary workers' pay must "not adversely affect the wages or working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers," according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Mar-a-Lago was given permission to hire 70 foreign workers for the 2017-18 season.