At North Beach in Burlington, Alec Kaeding is putting lifeguard towers in storage and buying “swim at your own risk” signs in bulk.
The city’s waterfront and parks operations manager said that, before the Covid-19 pandemic, the beach would have anywhere from 12 to 25 lifeguards on staff every summer. This year, there are only five.
That means, for the first time in Kaeding’s 10 years as manager, North Beach does not have lifeguards on duty. Instead, the beach has one first-aid station that visitors can go to if they need assistance or have questions.
“These plans were developed as a worst-case scenario,” Kaeding said. “Turns out, worst-case scenario happened. We didn’t get any more applications.”
With much of the state under a National Weather Service heat advisory until Thursday, pools and beach areas are preparing for an unseasonably high demand for swimming. But many swimming locations have yet to overcome pandemic staffing challenges and increased competition for young workers — leaving them understaffed or closed entirely.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 144,000 people worked as lifeguards and other recreational protective service workers in the United States in 2019. By 2023, 15% of workers had left the field, and only about 123,500 remained.
That means managers like Kaeding are struggling to fill open positions. Of the five lifeguards hired for the season, he said, at least one will always be stationed at the first-aid location, and the rest will walk the beach to enforce rules and “keep an eye on the water as much as possible,” he said.
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Otherwise, he said, it’s up to visitors to be more aware of their own safety and others’, especially with the high temperatures predicted for this week.
“If we see someone in trouble, we will still help,” he said. “But we just won’t have staff dedicated to do that.”
The lifeguard shortage comes at a time when concern over water safety is rising. From 2020 to 2022, more than 4,500 people in the U.S. died annually due to drowning — 500 more per year than in 2019, according to a study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This was attributed to a lack of awareness of swimming and water safety skills. According to the study, drowning is the leading cause of death for children 1 to 4 years old in the United States.
That leaves some pools hesitant to open without a full staff. The Barre City Municipal Swimming Pool, for example, is closed until it can hire more lifeguards.
Nick Storellicastro, Barre’s city manager, said he’s had to get creative to fill the staffing gap left by former employees who graduated from high school and college and could no longer hold a seasonal job. He said he’s raised the lifeguard wage from $15 per hour to $17 to attract new workers, and the pool is covering the cost of the $350 certification class new hires need to become a lifeguard.
The money to “incentivize getting people through the door” is coming from an assistant pool director position that was cut at the beginning of the summer, Storellicastro said.
If the six people currently enrolled in the certification class pass, he said, the pool could be open as early as Friday.
Other pools across the United States have used pay incentives to attract and retain staff. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the national average hourly wage for lifeguards and other recreational protective service workers rose from $12.20 in 2019 to $15.07 in 2023.
Kaleigh Bogner, pool supervisor at Myers Memorial Pool in Winooski, said incoming lifeguards are being paid $19 an hour, and returning lifeguards are making even more. Rewarding people who return summer after summer has kept the pool safe from shortages, she said.
Kaeding said North Beach raised its wages for lifeguards to $19 an hour as well. But that pay raise comes with longer days, he said. Lifeguards are now expected to work 10-hour shifts — from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. — for four days per week.
Meanwhile in the Upper Valley, Jay McDonough, Hartford’s superintendent of recreation programs, said his pool is just now recovering from effects of the pandemic. He couldn’t train or hire new lifeguards during the height of closures and restrictions, he said, which left a staffing gap that was hard to recover from.
The Sherman Manning Aquatic Facility on the campus of Hartford High School hires lifeguards when they are 15 or 16 years old and relies on those employees to return summer after summer, McDonough said. The past few summers, as employees graduated from school and quit their summer jobs, they were not being replaced by enough new hires.
Joe Major, executive director of the nearby Upper Valley Aquatic Center in White River Junction, said the staffing crisis of the pandemic is the worst he’s seen in his 30 years in the pool industry. In recent summers, he said, it’s been made worse due to increased competition for young workers.
While the number of people ages 18 to 24 remained stable in Vermont from 2010 to 2021, the number of children ages 0 to 17 fell by almost 12,000 in the same time period, according to the Vermont Legislative Joint Fiscal Office. For an industry that relies on offering 15- and 16-year-olds their first jobs, Major said, this change is significant.
Major said there’s competition for these limited young workers on and off the pool deck.
“Before, it was a situation where you were competing just against other pools,” Major said. “Now, you’re competing against Dunkin’ Donuts and against convenience stores that are offering up to $20 an hour and incredible benefits.”
The pools that have avoided staffing shortages this summer have found ways to corner the market of potential employees. The Upper Valley Aquatic Center, for example, hosts Red Cross lifeguard certification classes, so Major gets “the pick of the litter” of new lifeguards every summer, he said. McDonough, on the other hand, uses his pool’s location on the high school campus to maintain a steady stream of incoming lifeguards.
“(The lifeguards) spread the good word to their friends at school — that this is a fun place to work and a good environment. That’s how we’ve gotten 90% of our staff, if I had to guess,” McDonough said.
But Major said, even though his pool is fully staffed now, he always worries about seasonal workers choosing other summer jobs or moving on to their “forever jobs” after graduating from high school or college.
“We’re good for right now, but, you know, I knock on wood every day,” Major said. “Our hiring ad is always up. You always have to be hiring in this industry.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Lifeguard shortage leaves some Vermont pools and beaches unprepared for this week’s heat.