Posted on: Sunday, January 4, 2004

Tourism industry slow to hire more workers

By Kelly Yamanouchi
Advertiser Staff Writer

But for some of the workers who fuel Hawai'i's tourism industry, it has meant working longer and harder.

Higher productivity has been key to the success of the "jobless recovery" on the Mainland, which is emerging from a recession that began in 2001 and cost thousands of jobs.

Here in Hawai'i, overall unemployment rates have run lower than the national average, thanks in large part to low interest rates and robust construction. But in the hospitality industry, battered for years by economic weakness and international calamities, there has been no hiring boom.

As the tourism industry stages a recovery from the effects of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Iraq war and SARS, employees are toiling longer hours, some on their days off, as managers try to do more with less.

"When somebody leaves, they just won't rehire," said Michael Quartero, a member of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees, Local 5, who works as a hotel storekeeper. He said the remaining employees aren't able to get their work done within a regular shift and sometimes are asked to work overtime.

"Since 9/11, we've been having so much problems with understaffing," Quartero said. "It is to a point where it's kind of frustrating."

Hawai'i tourism suffered one of its biggest setbacks after the Sept. 11 attacks when many travelers stayed home and industry workers were laid off.

According to state labor statistics, 45 hotels staged mass layoffs attributable in part to Sept. 11, leading to 6,793 initial unemployment claims. A mass layoff is defined as 20 or more jobless benefit claims from a single business filed within a five-week period.

"Everybody had to skinny down as a matter of survival," said David Carey, chief executive of Outrigger Hotels & Resorts, where staffing remains below pre-Sept. 11 levels. "People have just simply had to get by with less because we had very, very lean times."

Since the downturn, tourists have slowly returned, leaving more rooms to clean, more suitcases to carry and more restaurant tables to serve. But the rehiring hasn't always kept pace.

After Sept. 11, many hotels closed restaurants and cut back on premium services like concierge help and club-level amenities. The staff cutbacks transferred some of the work to other employees.

At the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani, it was the concierge who was laid off.

"It's so busy," said Steve Ikehara, front service clerk. "Instead of just doing the bags, we gotta make reservations for restaurants, for bus transportation."

About 75 percent of the concierge's work has been allocated to the bell staff, he said. Employees must sometimes work overtime to help with tasks after their shift, he said.

"People have been reluctant to make major hiring decisions," Carey said. "You don't want to hire anybody if you don't know if the business is going to be there."

More uncertainty

Eric Gill, Local 5 secretary-treasurer, said many full-time employees are having to work beyond their regular shifts and on their days off because hotels have cut back on part-time and on-call relief workers.

"Many employees during the busy periods are forced to work overtime," he said. "That can be very disruptive for their families and their second jobs, which almost everyone has to have."

One reason behind the tight staffing is an industry trend of more last-minute, low-priced Internet bookings. Travelers who are waiting until a few days before they arrive to reserve a room are making it harder for managers to predict how full their hotels will be and how many workers to have on hand, Gill said.

"It's just a general trend — there's fewer people (and all) working harder," he said.

In many cases, industry employees have been working harder for the past couple of years. In November 2001, accommodation and food services employees were employed an average of 26.6 hours per week, an average that reflects both part-time and full-time work. The average rose to 27.8 hours in November 2002 and 29.2 hours in November 2003.

Hiring looking up

The good news is that some recovery in hiring has been evident in recent months. In November, there were 100,600 jobs in the leisure and hospitality industry, up from 97,300 in November 2002 and 95,200 in November 2001, according to seasonally adjusted figures from the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations.

The November 2003 job count was close to the November 2000 high of 100,800 jobs.

Stan Brown, Marriott's vice president in the Pacific Islands, said his hotel chain has added about 200 positions this year at 13 Hawai'i properties. With 5,200 employees, that is still about 5 percent below pre-Sept. 11 levels. But it's a big improvement over 20 percent to 30 percent cuts immediately after Sept. 11.

Some of the job growth may also be because of new time-share developments in the leisure and hospitality industry.

Erika Lacro, director of internship and career development at the University of Hawai'i's School of Travel Industry Management, is seeing a turn in hiring as well.

Lacro helps place graduates in management jobs at local companies, and for those jobs at least, "it seems as though they've reopened a lot of the positions that originally had been frozen," she said.

It has been months since a major catastrophe has hit Hawai'i's tourism industry, and employers are just starting to feel comfortable that optimism is no longer synonymous with delusion, Carey suggested.

"What I think you're seeing now is the beginnings of a more stable outlook, so I think that will have a positive impact on employment," Carey said.

Reach Kelly Yamanouchi at 535-2470, or at kyamanouchi@honoluluadvertiser.com.s