WASHINGTON—The Labor Department received nearly 100,000 temporary worker visa requests in the first five minutes of New Year’s Day, an unprecedented demand that caused the online submissions portal to crash, the government said Wednesday. Thousands of small businesses, including landscaping companies, restaurants and other seasonal businesses, remained in limbo as the website remained closed, a roadblock in the first step of the complex H-2B visa application process that yields a limited number of slots and requires approval...

Source: Wall Street Journal January 02, 2019 19:41 UTC