As American vacationers face frustration at airports and at the gas pump, there's another issue that could disrupt summer fun: the lifeguard shortage.
A third of the country's 300,000 public pools will have to cut back hours or close altogether this summer if they can’t find staff, the American Lifeguard Association warned.
"This is what we consider a critical lifeguard shortage in America," Wyatt Werneth, spokesperson for the American Lifeguard Association, told Yahoo Finance Live (video above). "And where [at] this time every year we normally have a full complement of lifeguards, we're not seeing it due to the pandemic, the cancellation of the J-1 work visa, ... as well as the competitive pay rates."
The impact is less severe at popular beaches in Florida and California where lifeguards tend to work year-round. Instead, the primary shortage has been seen at municipal pools, particularly in large U.S. cities.
Boston announced last week that some public pools would not open at all this summer, and Chicago said it will operate less than half its 77 pools after pushing back its opening date to July 5th.
The causes of the lifeguard shortage
During the pandemic, lifeguard certification programs were canceled across the country. That resulted in no new guards coming on board while thousands of certificates expired.
The second blow came in June 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic when then-President Trump banned foreign work visas due to public health concerns. Prior to the ban, many lifeguard positions were filled using the J-1 work visa, which brought in students from overseas.
President Biden did reverse Trump's policy, but it may take years for the numbers to rebound.
Werneth added that the war in Ukraine "is not helping" matters since many J-1 students that worked as lifeguards were Russian and Ukrainian.
The third driver of the lifeguard shortage has been the competition among industries for young workers. That battle has driven up wages beyond what many cities and towns can pay.
“That's the number one reason because we're not paying as much as other jobs, retail, or even in the restaurant business nowadays,” Werneth said. “So it's tough to have to go through all the training [and] be a strong swimmer to do that. It's easier to just go and get another job at one of these other locations.”
The Bureau of Labor estimates that lifeguards made a mean hourly wage of $13.14 in 2021, well below other seasonal jobs.
“So now what we're trying to do is we're obviously looking at raising the cost or the pay rate so that we can compete with the other jobs out there," Werneth said. "We're doing sign-on bonuses. I've seen it as high as $1,400 to sign up.”