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Solving seasonality in tourism? Labour shortages and guest worker programmes in the USA
Author(s) -
Terry William C
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
area
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.958
H-Index - 82
eISSN - 1475-4762
pISSN - 0004-0894
DOI - 10.1111/area.12242
Subject(s) - tourism , flexibility (engineering) , business , economic shortage , order (exchange) , marketing , hospitality , hospitality industry , human resources , face (sociological concept) , labour economics , public relations , economics , management , finance , sociology , political science , social science , linguistics , philosophy , government (linguistics) , law
The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of guest workers in tourism and hospitality in the USA . Despite the fact that many jobs in tourism require few hard skills and should therefore be open to a wide labour market, human resource managers report a dearth of qualified applicants. In order to meet seasonal shortfalls of workers, many have turned to the H ‐2 B and J ‐1 programmes as a means of accessing foreign guest workers. Each comes with a particular set of rules and regulations that produce a different sort of worker, the H ‐2 B workers with more experience but higher costs, and the J ‐1 workers with less experience, but more flexibility and lower costs. The study is based on qualitative interviews and analysis of hiring managers and recruiters in the C arolinas in the USA . Results provide a voice for operators to express the challenges they face in recruiting in a seasonal industry, and suggest that neither programme is adequate to fully meet the hiring needs of the industry.