Hospitality businesses cry out for more help

There are many reasons to think that it’s going to be a great summer hospitality season in the Lakes Region. Advance reservations are way up, the real estate market is booming, and many high-earning people have traded their residences in other Northeastern locales for a home near the lakes and mountains of New Hampshire. There is, however, one big headache that nearly every tourism-related business is dealing with: finding enough workers to serve the expected wave of business.

It’s a problem that Amy Landers, executive director of the Lakes Region Tourism Association, said affects every one of her organization’s members. She said the blame is partly due to the enhanced unemployment benefits that were put in place to keep households stable during the pandemic-triggered shutdowns and restrictions.

“There isn’t a business that isn’t impacted,” Landers said. She applauded the governor’s announcement last month that people collecting unemployment benefits would have to resume looking for work on May 23, but said that change won’t come fast enough for local hospitality businesses. Most of those restaurants, shops and tourist attractions are staffing up now so that their workers are trained and ready by Memorial Day Weekend, she said.

“We need to get that job search waiver addressed immediately, that does not do our members any good,”  Landers said. “Without that workforce, we are going to have businesses that don’t open fully or shut down entirely without those employees.” May 23, she said, is “way too late for our industry.”

Kellerhaus, the 115-year-old ice cream and candy shop, is preparing for a busy summer, said owner Daryl Dawson. He based his predictions on a notably busier than normal off-season.

“If things go the way it’s going right now, it’s going to be crazy busy,” Dawson said.

He would normally hire about 40 people for the summer, mostly teenagers or international workers through the J-1 visa program, designed for educational work programs. In a usual year he would have those positions filled by mid-May.

“Usually we would be pretty close by now, we’re about half right now,” he said. “It’s going to be down to the wire.”

Most of Dawson’s summer helpers are teenagers, 14- and 15-year-olds, who are coming in for their first job, and 16- and 17-year-olds who have been there for a few summers and can train the younger co-workers. It’s normal to lose the trained employees once they turn 18 and can start waiting tables, Dawson said, but what’s not normal is the lack of new applicants looking to take their place.

Dawson said he usually attends job fairs in the winter to collect a stack of applications, but the virtual versions of those events that were held this winter didn’t yield the same interest. He has boosted the referral bonus he offers to his workers who can entice a friend to join them, hoping that will bring some new faces through the door.

He feels he offers a competitive wage, and he offers raises to returning workers. Other than that, he said he hopes the state can entice people to re-engage with the labor market.

“I think they need to make sure people are getting back to work. I like that the state is requiring that people are looking for work. I think we have to get back to work,” Dawson said.

Critical levels

At some businesses, the shortage has reached critical levels. That’s the case at Hart’s Turkey Farm Restaurant, said owner Sim Willey.

“Every year, I always say it couldn’t get any worse than this, then the next year comes and it’s like ‘Oh my God,’” Willey said. His restaurant and catering business usually employs around 130 year-round people, and he’s making do with 80 right now. He usually looks to hire an additional 100 people just for the summer, but only has candidates for about half of those positions.

Willey sees it as a series of factors involved.

“When the pandemic happened, I laid off my entire company, basically, except I kept eight of us,” he said. Willey said many of those who were laid off during the state-mandated shutdown went on to find work in other fields, while some others found that they liked the unemployment benefits. Another group of potential employees have been priced out of the housing market.

“Workers are having a hard time finding a place to rent,” Willey said. He said he’s hoping to serve everyone who wants to buy food from Hart’s, but it’s possible that some of those people will be turned away hungry. His catering business is already overbooked with new orders as well as those that rescheduled from last year, and his restaurant staff might be stretched too thin by the usual schedule of serving lunch and dinner every day of the week.

“I’m going to try to do what we normally do,” Willey said, but added, “When push comes to shove, we might have to close one or two days a week to give our people some rest.”

The worker shortage is also hitting one of the most scenic hospitality establishments in the region. The Castle in the Clouds, operated by a nonprofit organization, usually grows from 14 year-rounders to about 85 in the summer, said executive director Chuck Clark.

The Castle’s recruiting efforts are around 20 people short, Clark said. Every department is feeling the pinch, but none more so than the organization’s food service.

“This is by far the worst year,” Clark said. Like Willey, Clark saw several factors at play. Some people might be fearful of working with the general public, as the coronavirus continues to circulate. Others might have taken the opportunity to jump into another career field, which might offer better pay or year-round employment. There may still be some potential workers who will reach out once the job search requirement kicks in on May 23, Clark said, but, “We open a week after that happens. If people apply right then it will be tough to hire them and get them up to speed.”

Clark said he is considering sign-on bonuses for some of the hard-to-fill positions, and he has boosted his help-wanted outreach, all in the hopes that The Castle won’t have to curtail its signature offerings.

“We haven’t made any decisions yet, we are still hopeful that we’ll get a few more people,” Clark said. If needed, they could reduce the restaurant’s hours, or limit its menu, to align with a smaller staff. “We would try to make operational changes first before drastically changing what we offer, but everything’s on the table if we don’t get enough help.”

The good news is that, even by conservative estimates, The Castle in the Clouds expects to have a good season. Just about every weekend has a wedding booked, and they expect daily visitation to the Castle – which looks south over Lake Winnipesaukee – to be strong if not record-setting. And, the organization has inked a deal to host the Great Waters Music Festival, which is planning seven performances under a large tent on the Castle’s grounds.

“I am optimistic that if we find the help that we need, we will have a really good season,” Clark said. “I am spending a lot of time thinking about how we can get as many people on the staff as possible, and then being really efficient about how we use them.”