The U.S. Travel Association (U.S. Travel), the national non-profit organization whose role it is to represent the combined interests of the travel sector’s various components, has just issued a reaction to the release of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) official March 2023 Employment report, which revealed a slowdown in the growth of travel and tourism industry jobs last month.
In March, the overall U.S. economy saw nonfarm employment rise by 236,000 jobs, being the lowest monthly increase amount seen since December 2020. The leisure and hospitality sector, specifically, saw the addition of 72,000 jobs last month; which, while still trending in a positive direction, represents less robust growth than the average monthly gain of 95,000 new jobs recorded over each of the previous six months.
With staffing shortages still an issue throughout the industry, U.S. Travel expressed concerns that the sector’s workforce will be inadequate to handle the high levels of travel demand that are being anticipated for 2023’s peak summer season.
In reaction to the BLS’ latest report, the association is calling upon the U.S. government to make policy adjustments that would facilitate the hiring of more seasonal foreign workers to fill the gaps and ensure the sector is able to run smoothly, thereby enabling the industry to live up to its fullest potential as a contributor to the nation’s economy.
Geoff Freeman, U.S. Travel Association (Source: U.S. Travel Assocciation)
In a statement released Friday, U.S. Travel Association President and CEO Geoff Freeman said, “The drop-off in leisure and hospitality hiring reported today is a concern as our industry prepares for the busy summer season and the need to fill 1.5 million open jobs in this sector. An adequately resourced travel workforce is essential to meeting demand and growing revenue in the travel industry.” He continued, “The federal government can help solve staffing needs by increasing the cap on H-2B temporary worker visas and permanently exempting returning workers from the cap.”
Freeman had already made a similar appeal last month after the BLS’ February Employment Report revealed that the travel and tourism industry were short roughly 1.7 million workers as the busy spring and summer travel seasons began to approach.
"Travel is essential to our nation's economy, but its success is reliant on access to workers to serve the traveling public,” he said last month. Freeman argued that the government’s allotment of H-2B visas, which allow for workers from outside the country to stay for the purposes seasonal of employment, was “at least 100,000 short of demand”. He argued that the cap on those visas needed to be increased in order to, “provide the industry with the temporary workers it so desperately needs."
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