Tourism hiring up ‘tremendously’

Mike Jucker, who lost his hotel job in 2008 in the midst of the global recession, is now back at work thanks to the record-setting pace of Hawaii’s tourism industry.

"It’s feels good," said Jucker, who re-entered the tourism industry in September 2011 as a concierge specialist at the Westin Maui Resort & Spa. "I never lost my passion for working with people and giving service to our guests. I am really happy to be back in the industry with Starwood."

Jucker is one of 8,700 Hawaii workers hired in accommodations or food services since May 2010, the low point for jobs in the industry. Hawaii’s tourism companies are creating new jobs, filling vacancies and offering paid internships, training programs and other perks. The state’s visitor industry, which is poised to break visitor arrivals and spending records this year, may also set a record for number of people employed.

Carl Bonham, director of the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization, expects Hawaii’s accommodations and food sectors to end the year a few hundred jobs shy of 2007’s record 97,820 workers.

"Hiring has ramped up tremendously," he said. "If you take these sectors together, we’ve almost completely recovered the jobs."

There were only 89,000 workers in Hawaii’s accommodations and food sectors in May 2010, Bonham said. By the second quarter of this year, there were 96,000 workers, he said.

"We are forecasting close to 4 percent job growth in these sectors," Bonham said.

However, the state is still waiting for that growth to spread, Bonham said. Accommodation and food jobs make up about 90 percent of the 11,000 jobs added to Hawaii’s economy from May 2010 to May 2012, he said.

"You would expect to see growth in the air and transportation sectors as well, but we are basically below where we were in 2009 for these jobs," Bonham said.

At some point, added lift and fuller planes should trigger airline and ground-transport hiring, he said.

Juanita Liu, interim dean of the University of Hawaii’s Travel Industry Management School, said few students were majoring in transportation after the collapse of Aloha Airlines and ATA Airlines. However, more have entered the major since Hawaiian Airlines and other carriers began adding routes and servicing new markets, Liu said.

There is greater demand for graduates who can fill jobs ranging from hotel to transportation, food and beverage, event planning, revenue management, social media, agriculture, weddings, tours and more, she said. There also are more calls to fill paid student internships, Liu said.

"The opportunities are wide open," she said.

As a result, the number of TIM School students has grown, she said.

"Our freshman class has more than doubled," Liu said.

Students are optimistic about the current hiring market, said Beverly Guiang, who began working as a management trainee at the J.W. Marriott Ihilani Resort and Spa shortly after her spring graduation from the TIM School.

"They just opened up this position," Guiang said. "There were fewer of these kinds of jobs in 2008 after the stock market crash."

While most TIM School grads leave the isles for international or mainland jobs, Guiang said nearly all of her classmates, who were from Hawaii, have found work in this economy.

Starwood recruits locals and combs schools on the mainland to bring them home, said Keith Vieira, senior vice president and director of operations for Starwood Hotels & Resorts, which has about 6,000 Hawaii workers.

"Our goal is to fill our entry-level programs with local management trainees," he said. "They don’t have to be born and raised here, but we want their heart to be here; otherwise, we’ll train them and they’ll leave."

By 2013, Bonham said the number of accommodations and food workers will surpass the previous record. How far past the previous record is harder for Bonham and visitor industry workers and leaders to estimate.

"It’s possible that Hawaii’s visitor industry over-hired in 2005 and 2006, which was in some respects a tourism bubble tied to a bubble in the housing market," Bonham said. "People were using their houses like ATMs to pull out money to take Hawaii vacations."

Hawaii’s cruise market also has contracted significantly from the last boom, he said.

Jucker said he sees a difference in this up cycle and the previous one.

"It took me longer than expected to find another tourism job," he said. "I would probably say there still are more people looking for jobs than there are jobs."

Starwood has about 5 percent fewer workers in the isles than it did at the last peak, Vieira said.

"We have less employees than we had in the peak revenue year 2007 because of restaurant re-concepts and management reductions," Vieira said. "Also, we are a union environment, so we have a lot of on-call people waiting for full-time shifts. Even with additional needs for service people, we think we are OK right now."

That said, revenue management careers offer growth potential, Vieira said.

"We need to find better ways to yield and give people what they need," he said. "You want IT to tie your guest satisfaction and your reservation and maintenance systems together."

Jobs in procurement and food management are growing along with the sustainable movement, Vieira said.

The growth of emerging tourism markets such as Korea, Taiwan and China also has created jobs, said Jerry Gibson, general manager of Hilton Hawaiian Village and area vice president for Hilton Hawaii, which employs 6,200 workers.

"Hilton Hawaiian Village has added about six positions in Korean and Chinese sales this year," Gibson said.

Kana Fujimoto, who was hired as the Regional Far East sales coordinator at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in February, said speaking fluent Japa­nese, Korean and English was the key to landing her latest job.

"On Oahu there are plenty of people who speak Japa­nese and English, so you need additional languages to stand out," Fujimoto said.

While Starwood already has a large base of multilingual employees, the company is recruiting workers with social media and online skills, Vieira said.

"If you don’t hire managers with social media and other online skills, you are handicapping yourself," Vieira said. "Restaurant managers need to be able to respond to TripAdvisor and Twitter."

Higher tourism levels also mean that service jobs may expand, Bonham said.

"The business hasn’t changed that much that you can cut jobs and get away with a tremendously smarter workforce," he said.

While Hilton doesn’t plan to add many jobs, Gibson said the company has filled vacant positions since the start of the year.

"When someone leaves we’ll replace them," he said.

With a greater number of tourism companies hiring, some employers are bracing for what could become a tight job market.

"The talent pool is very good, but it’s my belief that the service sector will get tight," said David Charles, managing director at Duty Free Shoppers. "As our business is strong, everyone’s business is strong. The hotels, the tour operators, the restaurants, they are all doing well."

DFS, which needs to fill 70 open retail floor jobs, is hedging its bets by offering generous benefits and career-training programs that help associates enhance their skills, Charles said.

"Our apprentice-to-master training program offers career opportunities for people who don’t want to run the business," he said. "We know the success story here is about the people."

Bonham expects 2013 also will bring some pickup in jobs in health care, wholesale and retail trade, and the large other-services category, which includes everything from legal services to waste management.