By Katie Redefer

REHOBOTH BEACH — In the days leading up to Memorial Day, President Joe Biden’s favored beach town is expecting the busiest weekend in more than a year, now that pandemic restrictions are easing.

Yet, businesses across the board — restaurants, shops, amusement parks, grocery stores, hotels and more — say they are significantly understaffed leading into the holiday.

“Help Wanted” signs can be spotted in countless windows down Rehoboth Avenue and on the boardwalk. Some restaurants and stores report they have no choice but to close periodically due to a lack of employees. Others struggle to keep up with growing lines of customers snaking out the door.

Louie’s Pizza on Rehoboth Avenue is one of the businesses stuck between having to close early or fight to keep pace with growing lines. Owner Tim Gouvas said that recently, the restaurant has been forced to close for one or two days a week due to staffing issues.

“Now, I’m closed one day a week, maybe … two days a week because I’ve lost two people to another establishment that’s paying more than I can afford,” Mr. Gouvas said. “That’s what is happening here. We see a lot of that.”

Louie’s Pizza typically hires approximately 15 summer employees, he said, but so far have only taken on five, despite his best efforts to recruit workers.

The revived summer tourism should bring a sigh of relief to these businesses, some of which hardly opened at all last summer during the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic. But with many businesses unable to attract enough employees to keep up, owners worry they may be underprepared to handle an influx of customers.

Mr. Gouvas said he’s happy to see tourists returning, but it also raises his concern about how his restaurant will manage the boost in customers. He said this worry extends far past the Rehoboth Beach Boardwalk to other essential businesses, like grocery stores.

“I’m concerned about the hiring because, I mean, nobody wants to have two-hour lines or hourlong lines because what’s going to happen is that people are going to get upset, the customers,” he said. “I heard a story yesterday from someone that went to the grocery store. The lines were so long because there were only two cashiers, that people were leaving their groceries right there and walking out of the market.”

Funland affected

Even staff at Funland, the family-owned amusement park that’s been a trademark attraction on the boardwalk for generations, said it is seeing fewer applicants than usual this season.

“I would say earlier in the spring, we were seeing far less applicants,” said Chris Darr, Funland’s personnel manager. “And even at job fairs, attendance at the job fairs was really low for applicants. That’s just sort of the problem. It doesn’t even seem there’s people out there looking for jobs.”

Funland typically hires more than a hundred summer employees each year, bringing a mix of local teenagers and international workers with J-1 visas. Although it has some success in the past month at gaining more applicants, Mr. Darr said the staff is still down about 15% than they would usually hire.

The boardwalk amusement park that overlooks the Atlantic Ocean usually draws a large pool of applicants given the desirable workplace conditions. The lack of interested potential employees led Mr. Darr to raise the question that if Funland can’t draw enough applicants this season, what businesses will?

“People kept joking with us at the job fairs, ‘If Funland can’t find employees, then we’re all in trouble,’” he said. “Everyone thinks, ‘Oh, everybody would want to work at Funland as a teenager,’ but really, we’re all struggling to find, not just a few, but a significant number of employees.”

The city of Rehoboth Beach has also faced difficulties with its summer hiring. Lynne Coan, communications specialist for the city, said it is still struggling to hire enough parking enforcement positions and seasonal police cadets this summer.

Unknown reasons

Some business owners say they aren’t sure exactly why their typical staffing levels aren’t returning — they just know they simply aren’t receiving the same number of applicants as they have in previous summers.

“Last year, there was COVID, so we just didn’t hire as many people. But this season, employees just aren’t there,” Mr. Gouvas said. “I could speculate as to why, but honestly, I don’t know the politics well enough. I know that a lot of people are … blaming it on unemployment. Whether it is that or not, I really don’t know.”

According to data released last week by the Delaware Department of Labor, 6.4% of Delawareans in the labor force were out of work in April, down from 6.5% one month before. Nationally, the jobless rate went from 6% to 6.1%. The jobless rate in Delaware climbed as high as 14.8% in 2020.

Others attribute the understaffing to the pandemic overall or that more workers are now choosing to file for unemployment benefits rather than returning to work. But overall, they say it’s hard to pinpoint why exactly this situation may be happening, as it can be attributed to many factors worsened by COVID-19.

Mr. Darr said that among many reasons for staffing troubles, young people have been looking for work less and less in the past decade, on top of fewer affordable-housing options available locally for young people to rent — both trends that have rapidly accelerated since the pandemic.

“I would say that we are looking at less high school and college students applying in our scenario,” he said. “It’s hard to find seasonal housing that’s affordable if you’re a college student and you want to come and stay for the summer. We rent apartments, but we can’t house everybody. So unless you have a place to stay … and a lot of these places that were affordable housing are getting torn down, and they’re building mega-mansions. Then, those people don’t need to work for a summer job.”

Gary Cannon, co-owner of Gary’s Dewey Beach Grill, also mentioned the lack of affordable housing in Dewey Beach as one of the reasons he’s seen fewer college students apply.

“It’s such a combination of everything, but I really think the biggest factor in Dewey is we do not have as many college kids as we used to, as many college kids can’t afford to live here,” Mr. Cannon said. “I mean, they tear down the little cottages that all the college kids used to rent, you know, 15 of them. Now that those places are going and gone, where can a college kid live at a reasonable price?”

Gary’s Dewey Beach Grill posted to Facebook last week about the low staffing and predicted crowds in the weekend to come, asking customers to be patient if service is slower than usual.

“The last year has added multiple years to the bodies, minds, and souls of the restaurant industry. All bars and restaurants are expected to open to full capacity ... and we are all short-staffed. The spinning wheel doesn’t stop and we will continue to do our best to roll with the punches. As we navigate these changes in the coming days and weeks, I guess what we are asking for is compassion,” the Facebook post read.

Unemployment benefits a factor?

Mr. Darr from Funland, as well as other business managers, referenced the extended unemployment benefits under the American Rescue Plan as a potential factor in seeing fewer applicants. The federal stimulus package enacted in early March will extend pandemic unemployment assistance until early September, after the summer tourism season has winded down, according to the state’s Department of Labor.

This is especially a concern for businesses like Funland, which must generate all its revenue during the summer months.

“(The stimulus) has certainly had an effect. We’re not paying $30 an hour, so somebody could potentially make more to be on unemployment than they can to work for us. So we’re competing with the federal government for employees,” Mr. Darr said.

Some businesses have tried offering benefits, raises or higher wages to entice new employees. This has brought success for some, but for others that can’t afford to keep up with the rising wages, the competitive salaries can create more hiring competition.

The Wawa along Del. 1 near Rehoboth Beach has tried offering new benefits and raises — like starting wages at $13/hour and a free Shorty hoagie provided every shift. But Karen Ragni, lead customer service associate at that store, said the benefits still haven’t drawn as many employees as they’d hoped for.

“It’s really bad this year. I think part of it is because people are afraid to still come to work. They might not have day care, and a major part of it is the extension of the unemployment benefits until September. We’re in a resort area here, so we depend on that,” Ms. Ragni said. “We’ve hired a couple people but not enough. They’re just not coming in.”

Matt Weiner, general manager of Zelky’s Beach Arcades on the boardwalk, said he also tried raising wages and offering end-of-summer bonuses, but he’s still seen an 80%-90% drop in employee applicants compared to previous summers.

“We raised wages this season. We also added a fairly large end-of-season bonus for any employee that stays with us through Labor Day — they’ll get a $1,000 minimum bonus, and that can be doubled or even tripled based on attendance, punctuality and effort,” Mr. Weiner said. “We’ve been advertising it on our signs and job postings online. I can’t say I’ve seen an increase in applications because of it.”

Another big loss for Rehoboth Beach businesses is the lack of workers coming from other countries with J-1 visas. Although some countries are beginning to restart their J-1 programs with the pandemic easing, institutional roadblocks have continued to prevent them from returning.

Mr. Darr said Funland has not been able to hire any J-1 visa workers this season due to the institutional issues abroad, which can prevent J-1 students from scheduling appointments to receive a visa.

“In a normal year, Funland would hire roughly 30 J-1 visa students to work alongside of us in a year when we normally have about 165 employees. And this year, we were hopeful to do half of that number, so roughly 18, of which it looks like we’ll have zero again,” Mr. Darr said.

“So that’s a big deal. If we hire 125 employees this year to work alongside our family, we really would like to have another 20 that would be J-1 visa students. If we don’t have those 20 in August, it’s going to make a huge difference for how we can operate the park moving forward.”

Mr. Weiner said the combined lack of J-1 students and local teens applying for jobs has devastated countless small businesses in the area.

“From what I understand, there was well over a thousand J-1 students that come here each summer, and most of those students end up working two or three jobs because they are trying to work as hard as they can for the summer,” Mr. Weiner said. “So that’s between 2,000 to 3,000 jobs that just aren’t being filled due to the lack of that program. Then, you have on top of it, where I would normally be getting piles of applications from younger Americans, they just don’t seem to be applying, and I do believe that is because they’re making more (with) unemployment than they are at the average job.”

Regardless of the challenges low staffing presents, most businesses are eager to welcome back the crowds after a year stunted by the pandemic.

“We are really optimistic. COVID was something we all had to deal with. But it seems like we are trying to come out the other side, and we’ve learned some good lessons from this,” Mr. Darr said.

“Business looks to be back. Rentals are totally sold out for the summer, so people are ready to get back to life. We want to welcome them and let them ride the Haunted Mansion, get a keychain with their picture or play Skee-Ball with their family. It’s great seeing the customers back enjoying the park and making those memories.”