THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 10, 1995 TAG: 9507080327
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JASON HIDALGO, BUSINESS WEEKLY
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
Wanted: Housekeepers.
Most Virginia Beach hotels display this sign throughout the summer as tourism reaches its annual peak.
Hotels have one thing going against them though. Low unemployment rates.
That and the grueling demands of the job have made housekeeper-hunting an annual ritual among Oceanfront hotels.
``It gets harder every year because the labor pool is insufficient,'' said Henry Richardson, president of the Virginia Beach Hotel and Motel Association.
Hampton Roads' declining jobless rate has meant a shrinking labor pool for the hotels and resorts that dominate the Oceanfront tourism industry.
Last week, state officials reported the region's jobless rate dipped to 4.7 percent in May, with 34,560 people unemployed, a drop from the 5.5, or 39,500 unemployed, in May `94.
The tight labor market pinches businesses that offer low-paying jobs such as housekeeping.
``It's very difficult work and the pay's not high,'' said Phyllis Skolnick, director of personnel for Virginia Beach Resort Hotel and Conference Center. ``We feel that people today, especially the younger ones, prefer to work for fast food places or as cashiers, making more money for less work.''
The region's large transient population is supposed to kick in and fill the vacant slots during these times, but most hotels are still finding no relief for their summer employment woes.
It's probably because Hampton Roads' transient population is, itself, finding a wider range of employment choices, said Ann Baldwin, director of research for Forward Hampton Roads, the economic development arm of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce.
``The hotel industry has always had difficulty, simply because most of their jobs are minimum wage,'' Baldwin said.
``The difficulties they experience in filling low income wages indicate that there are a lot more opportunities out there with higher pay and a better working environment.''
Baldwin cited increases in jobs that offer flexible hours, such as telemarketing and retail. Some jobs also require only 30 hours work, but still offer benefits, Baldwin said, something minimum wage jobs do not provide.
``The cost of living is up,'' Baldwin said. ``More people have less spendable income and simply can't afford to work at a low-paying job.''
Unless hotels make their low-paying jobs lucrative enough for people to consider them as a permanent means of employment, rather than just a temporary thing to tide them over difficult times, they will always have difficulty in filling those positions, Baldwin said.
Some hotels are trying to alleviate the problem by offering employees incentives.
``One of the things we're doing now is offering a 25-cent per hour bonus to employees who work from Memorial Day to Labor Day,'' Skolnick said. ``We also try to give bonuses and incentive pay to those who work hard.
But wages and the unemployment rate are not the only factors.
``The unemployment rate is different for every city in Hampton Roads,'' Baldwin said. ``The Virginia Beach hotels' labor pool might be at Norfolk but these people do not have transportation.''
Richard Anoia, owner of the Windjammer Motel, a Virginia Beach resort, has experienced this first hand.
``Finding employees is not a problem for us,'' Anoia said. ``But transportation is.''
Several of the resort's employees live outside Virginia Beach and have no cars. Most of them take the bus which proves to be difficult during Sundays when services are reduced.
``We're trying to work with TRT and come up with some sort of ride-sharing program,'' Anoia said. ``Right now, our staff is just picking up each other.''
Hotels, meanwhile, are playing the waiting game.
In general, when the economy picks up and grows rapidly, wages tend to rise, said John Whaley, director of economic services for the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission.
``I wouldn't be surprised if hotel owners start raising wages to attract employees,'' Whaley said.
Rudi Heater, general manager for the Radisson Hotel at Virginia Beach, agreed with Whaley but said his hotel is concentrating on ``maintaining good employee relations'' for the moment to counter the problem.
``When wages climb in a competitive market, you're forced to respond in a competitive nature,'' Heater said. ``We haven't had the need to do that. . . yet.'' ILLUSTRATION: File photo by ROBIE RAY
When unemployment is low, hotels have trouble hiring housekeepers
and, then, getting them rides to work.
by CNB