The career-types in each ski area’s finance, marketing and human resources departments are let go. When Vail Resorts acquires a new resort, they assimilate departments into the company’s headquarters in Broomfield. In the outpouring, Kaufman said, a theme emerged, especially at the company’s newly acquired resorts, which are lagging behind nearby resorts in Washington, Minnesota and New Hampshire when it comes to opening terrain. They blasted the company’s new human resources app, which is replacing people and departments at all of the company’s 34 North American ski areas. They showed how the company was stacking bunk beds into apartments, so four workers can share a room. They told him how Vail Resorts gutted middle-management positions when it slashed spending during the pandemic. Everybody touched by Vail Resorts has started realizing they could trust this faceless Instagram handle and they started pouring their guts out,” Kaufman said. “They are from staff, former staff, locals, guests. Kaufman, who this week handed control of the website and Instagram account to a new, anonymous administrator, said he was shocked and saddened by the tsunami of comments he’s received this month. People are realizing they are worth more and their quality of life is worth more than an extra dime an hour or whatever.” Few local businesses are not actively seeking employees along Main Street in Breckenridge on Saturday, October 16, 2021. “This is about communities running out of cheap labor. There is a shortage of people who will get duped into working for $15 an hour,” the Breckenridge patroller said of Lynch’s assessment. “It’s not that there are not enough talented people. The slow start to the season gave resorts more time to get terrain ready, but recent storms have exposed the lack of help in lift operations. Crested Butte Mountain Resort, which has been hammered with new snow this week, opened its East River chairlift on Wednesday, but that meant there were not enough lifties to keep the Teocalli lift running. Sources at Vail, Beaver Creek, Crested Butte and Keystone, which has only 32 of 130 runs open, told The Colorado Sun the same thing. One patroller at Breckenridge, who cannot speak on record due to Vail Resorts policy on talking with media, said a lack of chairlift operators, lift mechanics and snowcat drivers has slowed the resort’s ability to open terrain. Resorts across the country are issuing pleas for patience and apologies for delayed openings. The problem is acute at ski resorts hosting holiday crowds right now. A report by the World Travel & Tourism Council estimated a labor shortfall of 700,000 workers in the tourism and travel industries in 2021. Employers across the country are struggling with post-peak-pandemic staffing, especially as workers test positive in this latest wave of the coronavirus. Health care, travel, restaurant and retail industries are limping as workers delay their return to the workplace or seek out better jobs. Vail Resorts CEO Kirsten Lynch, in a year-end pep talk for employees, described a “global talent shortage” in addition to the challenges from weather and the pandemic and said “no doubt we have had to overcome much this year.” And without workers, resort community businesses are struggling. A pandemic-triggered escalation of real estate prices has reduced the number of homes available to local workers. The Epic-passed hordes have collided with rippling effects of the pandemic that Vail Resorts did not predict when it launched its season-pass fire sale. That’s a 76% increase over the 2019-20 season. Vail Resorts this year sold 2.1 million pre-purchased tickets and season passes. Last week, he said the account was getting “a thousand every day.” Kaufman this fall started getting dozens of direct messages a day. The EpicLiftLines Instagram handle has more than 15,000 followers, even though Kaufman made only a handful of posts. The website gets thousands of clicks a day. The EpicLiftLines Instagram page has grown into a nationwide vent for thousands of resort workers, most of them, he said, employed by Vail Resorts, which owns 34 ski areas in 14 states and Canada. Labor shortage leaves ski resorts understaffed for holidays, omicron surge Close
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