Summer jobs hard to fill in Long Island's tight labor market

From water parks to wineries, Long Island business owners said even with lingering economic worries, they expect to see plenty of customers during the approaching summer season.

Given the Island’s record low unemployment rate — 2.4% as of April — stiff competition for some seasonal workers will continue to challenge businesses that have been wrestling with a tight labor market since 2021. Still, big summer employers like Splish Splash said they are on track to hire their usual number of seasonal workers.

“We have had multiple onsite job fairs,” said Danielle Trombetta, the Calverton water park's director of marketing.

Splish Splash, owned by amusement park operator Palace Entertainment of Pennsylvania, is aiming to fill roughly 800 positions to meet expected demand, the same number as in previous years, and is largely on its way to that goal, Trombetta said.

The 96-acre water park is 75% to 80% staffed up for the summer, she said, though certain roles have been harder to fill than others, even as the park offers starting hourly rates as high as $19 for some positions.

“There are just two main areas that we are lacking positions in right now: cooks and lifeguards,” Trombetta said. “We’re doing really well overall.”

While seasonal employers said they feel a sense of optimism heading into Memorial Day weekend, it remains to be seen how hiring efforts for this summer will go, as state jobs data for the key period won’t be released until late June.

“Overall, the leisure and hospitality sector, which includes recreation as well as accommodations and food services, picks up their hiring in May and June,” said Shital Patel, labor economist for the state Labor Department’s Hicksville office. “Over those two months, the sector typically adds nearly 15,000 jobs.”

Patel said previous data suggests that in the years leading up to the pandemic, summer hiring was on the upswing. Now, with the federal COVID-19 emergency declaration ended, and employment at or above 2019 levels, the Island’s summer employment may regain lost momentum.

“In general, the summer tourism season had been growing for the several years preceding the pandemic, but it took several years after the pandemic to gain the jobs that have been lost,” she said. “We sort of regained those in the middle of 2022.”

Kristin Senese, co-owner of CoreysWave Professional Surf Instruction in Montauk, said she and her husband, Corey Senese, are expecting a robust summer of business, weather permitting.

“That’s our bread and butter,” said Senese, adding that the next three months determine up to 90% of their total business.

Hiring up for the summer is important, though in her line of business, staffing can look quite different.

At the height of the season, Senese said, she might expect to have around 10 instructors available, many of whom have worked with the couple’s business since its start 15 years ago. But because of the nature of the job, some instructors are only available for certain parts of the summer and have much more flexibility in setting their own hours.

“It’s hard to plan but that’s always the nature of what we’ve done and we're very used to it,” she said.

Kareem Massoud, winemaker for Paumanok and Palmer Vineyards in Aquebogue, said his family-run business has largely finished hiring for the summer, but might “do a little more hiring” in the coming weeks.

“By May you hope to have a team mostly assembled to be ready for the onset of the season,” said Massoud, who also serves as president of Long Island Wine Country, an industry group for local winemakers.

“Restaurants, hotels and wineries have been getting their staffing needs sorted out,” he said. “That’s with the expectation that we’re going to have another busy summer.”

Describing the peak of wine country season as Memorial Day through Columbus Day weekend, Massoud said his business and the industry overall have already seen foot traffic pick up since the end of April.

“The economy overall seems to be still quite strong despite the interest rates,” he said. “We’re cautiously optimistic, and I’m not the only one. I think that’s a shared view.”