A lot of jobs were available at the Guilford County Hotel Association Job Fair held at the Greensboro Marriott Downtown at 304 N. Greene St. Friday, April 16.
The hotel industry was well represented with tables manned with plenty of personnel. Some even had cookies and goody bags for potential employees.
The problem was that not many job applicants showed up. In over an hour of observation of the job fair that was held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., only one potential candidate was in the room.
It’s definitely a COVID-19 issue. During the shutdown, hotels were pretty much shut down also. People weren’t traveling and events that attract people to Greensboro – sporting events, entertainment and even weddings and funerals –were canceled or held with only a small number of people.
But now, as things are opening back up, albeit slower than many people desire, the hospitality industry is picking back up and needs employees.
Kurtis Reynolds, the director of front office for Grandover Resort and Conference Center, said, “We are currently interviewing proactively for when business picks up. We have the appropriate amount of staff to keep customer satisfaction where it needs to be.”
John Martiere, food and beverage assistant director for Grandover, said, “It’s definitely a struggle.”
He said that it was particularly difficult to fill the lower wage jobs and attributed some of the reluctance of people to go back work the increased unemployment assistance they were receiving.
Reynolds and Martiere both said they had a problem with people filling out applications being told they had a job and never showing up for work. They said that happened in about 40 percent of the cases.
Other hotel management folks at the job fair hoping to hire people agreed off the record that they were having the same problems filling staff positions and with people not showing up for the first day of work.
One prospective employer explained that it was difficult to get people to come to work for $10 or $12 an hour when the current unemployment benefits worked out to about $13.75 an hour. Several people said it was extremely difficult to convince people to come to work every day and make less money than they would if they stayed home.
Martiere said that another problem he had found was that when people got laid off from the hospitality industry, they decided to change careers to something that they thought would be more stable.
He said, “There are fewer people coming to look for employment than there are jobs.”
Several people noted that right now they were making do by having people cross-trained and having supervisors filling in where needed, but as business continues to pick up, they are going to need more staff and currently it’s a real struggle to find people who want to work.
“One prospective employer explained that it was difficult to get people to come to work for $10 or $12 an hour when the current unemployment benefits worked out to about $13.75 an hour.”
For all the liberals out there, this is what you get when the “guv ment” gives out money rather than letting the free market decide on the cost of labor. When governments decide the cost of labor, companies take their business elsewhere (China?) which doesn’t require a minimum wage. Supply and demand is basic economic theory, but these supported federal wages are an example of reducing the supply of labor since people can sit home and not work and get the same money.
So these hotels and restaurants are going to take their jobs to China now? ♀️
The lower paying jobs as you’ve stated are also the jobs that require more time spent away from home and at work more efforts trying to please unpleasant people and receive abuse from bosses/ supervisors. These type of jobs and other low paying positions which are quite a neccessity in order for the business to survive are aways short staffed ie: cnas and caregiver, school bus drivers, retail sales clerks, and food service worker just to name a few. Where are the incentives to go back to this environment? Maybe properly staffed and $2 more per hour and a pleasant atmosphere and bosses who care about every member of his team even the lowest paid. #just my two cents…
Do you understand the meaning of the words you use, namely “liberal”?
A liberal is one that supports market economy. You’re saying that the free market should set the “cost of wages”.
Which is a problem in its own, because the market isn’t free as long as there are large corporations. An employee can pressure an employer only if the latter is a small business.
Otherwise the employee always loses.
Um, no. Unemployment pays enough to eat and better figure out u gotta pay folk to wrk duh.
Give out money? I earned that unemployment rate due to the jobs I worked. Tell the hotels to stop being so cheap. $10-$12 to get yelled at by ungrateful people? No thanks. How about you do that instead?
Yes, take all the hotels and resorts to China, free up the land for other use.
Great idea! I’m so happy you’re for that.
Hilarious! I’m reality this is the free market regulating itself. If you refuse to pay an appropriate cost for labor, you don’t have employees. It’s not complicated.
Here’s a thought… try paying people a fair wage and maybe they’ll want to work for you.
Never begin a sentence with ‘so’, and certainly don’t end a sentence ,ever, with a preposition .
Mentioned as a friend .
🙂
So, like where are you at?
So this “teacher” seems to be teaching the white way to communicate. Their point was very clear, but you know -5 for not speaking white enough.
Hi sir/madam,
Greetings!!
This is sathish from india ,do u have any vaccance in F and B service. I have a 3yr internation expirance and also have hotel management degree .
This sounds like the pay should be increased.
You want people to face the public and take the abuse from Trumpsters and anti-maskers, then PAY them $15/hour.
We opened up a cleaning service for a chain of hotels and was paidc$5.00 Per room $35 a day for laundry after we got the hotels through Covid and started being treated unfairly they let us go because they wanted there people of color not us,now tell me whats wromg with that picture the pay to make these foreigners Billionairs and we still have to work from paycheck to pay check and they love paying people less than there worth.
There is no incentives to work right now. People are being handed everything. This isn’t because they are afraid to leave their homes. People leave their homes daily to shop, get nails done, hair done, groceries etc. Go out to eat any night of the week and places are packed. Stop giving away everything. It’s time for people to work!
Be careful of your words they become life # yours
I am working at a distribution center in Raleigh.I received unemployment in 2020 for 5 months.I can’t blame people for staying home if they can make more$.It is what it is.
When the government will pay more for people to sit at home rather than work, there will constantly be jobs that cannot be filled. We must get back to the concept that if you don’t work, you don’t eat!
What a crappy place to work, they treat their employees like trash. You can’t live off the pay, and if your not family of the Kourys, you’ll never get a better paying job.They also love to hide sexual assault! What a disgraceful company.
Let’s start with you!
The “reset” plan is working, and people aren’t. Welcome socialism.
Finding people willing to work is like this pandemic. No work ethic, and free money for not working.
Please make me King of the USA.
There is also the problem of of those of us who were in the hospitality industry before covid are being asked to come back at lower wages then we were at previously. That coupled with lots of legitimate companies that are looking for home based employees are starting people at more than $12 an hour and providing the necessary equipment. So, going in to a hotel to clean rooms or serve drinks for $10-11 an hour is just not appealing.
The issue here is that you cannot pay late 90s wages to workers in the year 2021 and expect them to stick around. As an anonymous source who has worked for the Grandover, I can confirm that Koury Corporation’s (the monster-Corp behind the Grandover Resort and Conference Center) wages are laughably low compared to the industry standard and are in no way proportionate to the cost of living for the triad.
And as a previous employee, I can confirm that the company itself is a paragon for the “trickle-down” effect; reward is not given based on merit by Koury Corp, but is given based on who you know within the company—with the executives making the most money and the workers being paid the bare minimum.
With health coverage being offered by UMR (one of the notoriously worst insurance companies), coupled with the Grandover being a standalone, family-owned hotel (meaning there are 0 travel benefits as far as discounts when staying at other hotels, and the company will not even allow it’s employees to use their facilities (restaurants, pool, golf, spa—EVEN lodging—being completely off the table)), and the fact that communications are completely impaired from the top to the bottom, the question would be less “why are people not wanting to work for us” and more of “why would anyone want to work for us?”
After having worked for this corporation before, I would not recommend a job there to anyone. When you are paid late 90s wages and have virtually no benefits for working for the company, you become less of a worker and more of a servant.
Additionally, the people in upper management are the most incapable crew that I have ever worked for. At the time I was there, an enormous property management system conversion happened and the general manager (at the time, who I now understand has been promoted to executive VP of hospitality (good luck)), was much more concerned with what color the carpet should be than what was actually happening within the operations of his hotel.
Take my advice and don’t listen to the “pity party” that the board of directors are trying to throw here; this resort, while lovely on the outside, has an inside that is rotting to the core.
Things she said – THAT As a previous employer of the same patriarchal establishment that is Grandover Resort, I co-sign this comment bc I could not have said it better myself.
Wasn’t it Biden who wanted to raise minimum wage to $15 an hour?Just saying.
It’s because the payments reset the market for labor. People started to realize that they were being exploited by their employers, and now the FREE MARKET is reacting appropriately.
Y’all LOVE the free market when it works in your favor, as it has for a very long time. Now, the playfield is changing, y’all can’t offer crap jobs for crap wages because the people KNOW you’ve been deceiving them. Now that we know the rules of the game, you can’t cry fowl. Now that we know how to play by the rules you set, you can’t change them.
You can try, but we know what we’re worth now. And we know you’ve been cheating us. And we’re becoming angry.
Hilarious! Yep this is totally the fault of anything but paying people peasant wages! It must be those pesky Libs! Socialism BAD (but socialist things that benefit you today are GOOD)!
Seriously it’s quite sad that those earning incredible amounts for their “HARD” work see no shame in trying to blame everything but the paltry income paid to these people whom are expected to clean vomit, feces, and ejaculate off bedding among the many other wonders hotel employees get to deal with.
Where have these executives been for the last year? If you own or run a service industry you will not be able to hire qualified
employees even if you pay $15.00 an hour.
Think about it. If staying home or vacationing whatever your preference may be gets you $13.75 an hour, why go to the trouble for $1.75 more an hour. As long as the supplemental unemployment benefits continue people will not be seeking employment. It’s not rocket science.