Feb. 2--A low unemployment rate and a growing supply of new jobs -- mostly in the service sector -- are creating a tough equation for the local hospitality industry to solve.
Robert Wacker, a renowned Florida consultant and former Walt Disney Company executive, spoke on the subject Tuesday afternoon at the 35th annual S.C. Governor's Conference on Tourism and Travel at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center.
Acquiring and developing talented employees is what Wacker referred to as 'this dilemma we all have.'
Unemployment in Horry County reached 4.9 percent in December, and experts speculate that planned resorts, hotels, golf courses and retail complexes will furnish the area with another 27,955 jobs in the next 25 years.
After dipping to 3.4 percent in July, the state's unemployment rate reached 4.7 percent in November, according to the state Employment Security Commission. The state saw nearly 43,000 new jobs in 1999.
Wacker said the global hospitality industry will grow at a healthy pace during the next five years. In the same time period, Marriott International, Inc., alone is expected to add 20,000 positions to their organization.
Pat Moody, Interim Dean of the College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management at the University of South Carolina, introduced Wacker at Tuesday's seminar and said that government, educators and businesses need to work together to build a 'tourism machine' in South Carolina.
Moody said tourism surpassed manufacturing as the state's biggest employer in 1996 and remains the largest sector of the state's economy
Wacker said companies need to explore untapped sources in the labor market, such as senior citizens, part-time employees and workers with disabilities, to fill employment gaps.
He also suggested companies spend more time training employees and listening to them.
'We're in a high-touch business,' he said. 'We're in the people business.'
He also said deserving employees should be compensated with benefits and perks even if salaries remain on the low end of the spectrum.
'We have an imaging issue,' Wacker said of the industry.
Local hotel employees who clustered after Wacker's talk said they felt area salaries need improvement.
JoAnne Rathbone, who now works for Fairfield Inn at Briarcliffe, was disappointed by the 25-cent raise she got at another Myrtle Beach hotel where she previously worked.
'It was like a slap in the face,' she said. 'Their loyalty to me was not the same as my loyalty to them.'
Richard Douglas, supervisor of guest services at the Sea Mist Resort, said money may not be the main focus for most in the service industry, but 'it has to meet the cost of living.'
Douglas called company loyalty a two-way street.
Before working at Sea Mist, he was hired by another local resort that promised him a 40-hour work week even during the slow season. But when the winter months came, Douglas was laid off.
Lori Lentz, who works for Fairfield Inn at Broadway At The Beach, moved to Myrtle Beach from Madison, Wis., where she was making about $5 more an hour. She said the cost of living in Madison is a little more than Myrtle Beach, but she found the disparity in wages 'a shock.'
'I think if they started paying people a little bit higher to begin with, they're going to retain their employees,' Rathbone said.
Lentz said she has known area employees to quit their jobs for a 50-cent raise somewhere else.
Despite the afternoon's hot topic, Wacker's talk drew a sparse audience.
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(c) 2000, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
