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November 26, 2006
SALT LAKE CITY - A dwindling number of applicants for Utah seasonal jobs has some employers wringing their hands – especially in resort-laden Park City.
“We have at least 200 job openings (in Park City),” said Tom Anderson, a Utah Department of Workforce Services business consultant for Summit and Wasatch counties. “Employers have been complaining about a lack of applicants.”
Most of the available positions are service industry jobs in restaurants, ski resorts and retail shops.
In the past, many of those jobs were taken by college graduates looking to “ski-bum” for a season before starting a career. But that trend slowed in the late 1980s and the jobs have since been filled by a wave of immigrant labor.
This year, however, the Utah job market seems to have expanded beyond the immigrant community’s capacity to provide workers, observers say.
“We’re having a really hard time,” Park City Mayor Dana Williams said. “I haven’t heard a full-on community outcry, but I’ve heard rumblings from people who can’t find enough employees.”
That includes the city itself, which traditionally hires immigrant workers for seasonal work.
An overall tight Utah labor market and Summit County’s full employment rate are factors in the shortage of applicants, said Jim Robson, a labor market analyst for Workforce Services.
About 20,916 county residents report having jobs, while only 484 residents say they are without work. That’s an unemployment rate of just 2.3 percent, Robson said.
Also contributing to a shortfall is Utah’s strong construction industry, where workers typically earn a higher wage than they would in service industry jobs.
“The workers are going to go where they can get the best wage,” Robson said.
Summit County ski resorts The Canyons, Park City Mountain Resort and Deer Valley, all of which hire hundreds of season employees, say the are well-staffed for the season.
But it’s always a challenge to fill those positions, said The Canyons Director of Public Relations Libby Dowd.
Dowd said resorts use a variety of strategies to fill seasonal jobs, including hiring foreign college students who are looking for “an American experience.’
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