ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, July 6, 1996 TAG: 9607080030
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRISTOPHER L. BOYD STAFF WRITER
ENTRY-LEVEL JOBS are the hardest to fill, especially in the Roanoke Valley, where unemployment is very low and workers have many options.
In the face of high turnover in a rapidly expanding industry, U.S. hotels - including some in the Roanoke Valley - are experiencing the worst shortage of workers in nearly eight years.
The shortage is especially acute in jobs such as housekeeper, kitchen helper and laundry worker.
Roanoke area hotels reported having trouble filling entry-level jobs such as housekeepers and bellmen that pay low wages and provide few, if any, fringe benefits.
The region's low unemployment rate - 2.5 percent in April - is allowing people to be more selective in the jobs they choose, said Stan Hodgdon, manager at the Holiday Inn-Civic Center in downtown Roanoke. He said the hotel is finding it increasingly harder to find good people for both hotel and restaurant jobs.
"People will be here one day, and then we won't see them again," said Mary Dodge, payroll clerk at the Roanoke Airport Marriott. "People just don't stay once they get a job. Maybe there are too many jobs open."
Area hotels pay such workers $5 to $7 an hour. Some employees get small benefit packages, but advancement may be distant. "Not having a benefit package might be the reason for them to look elsewhere," said Hodgdon.
While the Bureau of Labor Statistics does not track hotel workers, its statistics do show that the median earnings of ``maids and housemen'' not employed in private households were $247 a week last year, compared with $220 a week in 1990.
Away from some big cities, nonunion entry-level housekeepers typically earn $6 to $7 a hour, while waiters and waitresses can make as much as $15 an hour, including tips.
The Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center hasn't experienced a major shortage of employees; in fact, general manager Gary Walton said the facility has attracted some pretty good quality employees. But the difference, he noted, is that Hotel Roanoke's full-time employees earn benefits, even for entry-level positions.
"We offer a pretty attractive benefit promotion," Walton said. "Employees can get personal time off, they have health benefits, plus other things. We offer these to compete with other companies."
Hotels in many cities have been forced to hire full-time recruiting managers armed with an unprecedented array of blandishments and benefits.
These include profit-sharing programs, medical and dental insurance, child-care centers, 401(k)s with matching funds, paid holidays and vacations, company-provided transportation and bonuses based on attendance. Many hotels also offer employees finder's fees, up to $100, for recruiting friends or relatives.
Most fringe benefits are reserved for full-time employees, who make up 70 percent of the work force.
The demand for hotel workers can clearly be seen at national chains, such as the Washington, D.C.-based Marriott Corp., which must fill more than 50,000 jobs a year. As a result, the company recently opened a toll-free telephone line for job seekers who want to work in New York, St. Louis, Dallas and eight other cities.
``We're constantly looking for good people who want an opportunity to participate in our growth,'' said J.W. Marriott Jr., chairman of the company, which has more than 1,000 hotels and expects to have 2,000 by the end of the decade. On any day, the company has more than 1,000 jobs to fill.
Behind this demand are rising hotel occupancy rates, requiring more services at existing hotels, and a jump in hotel construction in the last several years.
Unlike in previous economic growth periods, when hotels nationally recruited workers by advertising in newspapers or just spreading the word that they were hiring, today there is heavy competition in the job market from cruise ships, fast-food outlets, theme parks, casinos and shopping malls - as well as from the increasing number of hotels.
Many entry-level workers not only lack basic skills initially, but often they can neither read nor write. ``Forty-eight percent of hotel workers right up to the supervisory level are illiterate, and we predict by the year 2000 it could rise as high as 60 percent,'' said Bob Foley, head of the education arm of the American Hotel and Motel Association.
Marriott has been particularly successful training inner-city dropouts, welfare recipients and the long-term unemployed. Its 180-hour program (including 120 hours on the job) has successfully taught some 500 beginners essentials like work ethic, proper attitude, responsibility, self-esteem and teamwork.
The program, currently operating in Washington, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York and Richmond, will soon be established at Job Corps and Jewish Vocational Services sites.
Wilma Miller, Roanoke branch manager at Manpower Temporary Services, said calls from area hotels seeking workers recently have been more frequent than in the past.
"It's not really advantageous for us to send people to hotels," said Kim Campbell, customer service associate at Norrell Services, another Roanoke employment service. "With the economy being so good now, people come to us looking for something better than the hotel business."
The New York Times News Service contributed to this story.
LENGTH: Long : 102 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: PHILIP HOLMAN Staff. Steve Parks, a bellman at the Hotelby CNBRoanoke, delivers a guest's luggage to her room. Like the hotel
industry nationwide, Hotel Roanoke experiences shortages of workers
from time to time, says Gary Walton, the hotel's general manager.
color.