I’m usually not a ‘harbinger’ guy.
That is, I don’t walk around saying, ‘Well, that’s a harbinger of things to come.’ I don’t believe in omens, and I don’t believe in foreshadowing. Shakespeare aside, of course.
But when a big giant entity like the U.S. Travel Association is concerned, I guess I should be concerned. The group is notably concerned that there is a slow growth in the amount of travel sector jobs for the summer.
U.S. Travel Association President and CEO Geoff Freeman issued the following statement on the Bureau of Labor Statistics March Employment report, which saw the overall economy add 236,000 jobs in March (the lowest monthly gain since December 2020), while the leisure and hospitality sector added 72,000 jobs—well under the average monthly gain of 95,000 per month over the prior six months:
“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. The federal government can help solve staffing needs by increasing the cap on H-2B temporary worker visa and permanently exempting returning workers from the cap.”
That’s not good news.
It is a legitimate concern, no doubt. But it’s still early. For the most part, colleges aren’t even out of session yet. It’s a seasonal thing, that’s why they call it a summer job. You don’t hear of anybody calling it a fall job or a spring job.
The reason that this is a concern is because recession is cyclical but it seems to have stuck around for far longer. But people are back to traveling, and there’s always a need for gate agents and front desk people and porters and bell hops and the like. We have to let the situation play itself out. If this report came out in July, that’s another story.
I am not saying we should brush this aside. What I am saying is that there is a concern here, and we should monitor the situation. Inflation has impacted all areas of our life, travel being one of them. Some people aren’t even going on vacation. But for those that will, there will be workers there.
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