Maryland Seafood Trade Workforce Decimated By Seasonal Worker Lottery

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — A collapsing industry. That’s what crab picking houses on the Eastern Shore say they are facing because of federal action that’s created a labor shortage.
In Dorchester County, eight crab picking houses provide 85% of Maryland’s crab meat. But only four of those houses have the foreign workers they need to pick crabs.
One of them is AE Phillips and Sons.
“We’re going into the second month of the season, and there’s no Maryland blue crab