Posted on 03/27/2006 8:02:28 AM PST by Dane
Paramount’s Kings Island amusement park in Cincinnati, struggling to cope with a tri-state labor shortage, hired up to 300 European college students to staff its peak summer months. Another 200 workers were imported from other US cities. To accommodate its new recruits, the amusement park leased a University of Cincinnati dormitory and signed a $150,000 contract with Metro to provide expanded bus service to the park. Park officials say, “We’re going to have to be more creative in finding workers.” Importing foreign workers may seem novel in Cincinnati but it is a common practice in the amusement park industry. “I’m aware of a half-dozen or so facilities across the United States that have brought in foreign employees and put them up in a dorm room or hotel rooms,” said Joel Cliff, a spokesman for the International Association of Amusement Parks & Attractions. The biggest problem facing the amusement industry in the next decade is the shrinking labor force among high school and college-age students.
Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky OH has on-site dormitories that can accommodate up to 3000 workers. Casino Pier and Water Park in Seaside Heights NJ has hired students from Ireland since the 1980s. And Paramount’s King’s Dominion, a sister park to Kings Island, housed 250 Europeans in dorms at Virginia Commonwealth University. Not only is this a problem in the United States, it’s a problem in England and France; they are hiring employees from other countries too.
(Excerpt) Read more at hospitalitynet.org ...
I'm posting this because another poster said illegals were taking these jobs away college kids, when that is not true.
Nice post. We have a very low unemployment rate, the economy is booming and the evidence that there aren't enough people for certain job sectors is everywhere.
Illegal immigration is a bugaboo of the far left--trade unionists and isolationists--that some on the right (for whatever reason)have taken up without looking at the facts.
Frankly, if people are loosing jobs today it is much more likely due to cheap chinese imports (from slave labor and artifically low currency) than illegal immigrants from SA.
“We’re going to have to be more creative in finding workers.”
May I suggest that they raise their pay? There is no rule that says that you've MUST pay the minimum wage. It's a minimum, not a maximum.
And how do you know they are just paying minimum. Should a sno-cone attendant be paid $20 an hour. Would you pay a sno-cone attendant $20 an hour.
The point is do the birth dearth and abortion in the US, there is a labor shortage.
I would pay a sno-cone attendant $20 an hour if they were worth it. If you can find a great sno-cone seller who can hustle and get people to buy a lot of sugar and ice for 1.50 you bet I would. It wouldn't take long to cover that $20.
Hmm, on a rainy or cold day? You don't run an amusement park do you?
Actually I would put them on a comission, that would mean they would actually have to hustle and learn selling skills, instead of waiting for their "break" or ignoring cutomers while talking to that cute Jimmy bringing in extra ice.
And how do you know they are just paying minimum. Should a sno-cone attendant be paid $20 an hour. Would you pay a sno-cone attendant $20 an hour.
if there's one sno-cone attendant and demand for 50 sno-cone attendants he's going to be making alot more than $20 an hour.
How do you judge whether there is a shortage? The labor market balances, just like every other market. If they can't find people who want to work for them, then increase the pay. I don't care if they are already paying more than the minimum wage. They can increase it from whatever level they are paying. That's the American system. It's supply and demand. If they can't hire people, then it's because they refuse to pay the going rate.
Personally, I don't have much sympathy for that--certainly not enough sympathy to let a flood of illegal workers in to fill the jobs.
Yep supply and demand, and due to 30 years of abortion, there is a low supply of labor for the Amusement park industry and they have to import it from other countries.
I guess we shouldn't import oil to drive our cars using your logic.
I don't have any problem importing oil, if that is the result the market gives. Importing labor increases the TOTAL good, but primarily because it benefits the imported workers. It works to the disadvantage of workers who are already here, though, because it depresses wages.
My philosophy is that our responsibility is to American workers, not to Mexican workers.
If you were consistent in your market/America first rhetoric, you would be for the prohibition of foreign oil, IMO.
My point was not about the sno-cone business. It was that I would be willing to pay a person who sells more or is more efficient at doing X more than the minimum or customary wage for a job.
I'm not aiming for consistency. I'm aiming for efficiency and wealth, and I'm only concerned about efficiency and wealth in the US. It is true that flooding the US with millions of illegal aliens could be considered "efficient," but only if you don't have a preference for American workers over foreign workers. The world would be better off if we did that, but the US would not because our per capita income and wealth would decline.
I can tell that.
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