Leisure and hospitality is Glynn County’s leading industry. Let’s get to know it a little better.
The leisure and hospitality industry is a collection of many industries, from hotels, restaurants and bars to the performing arts, spectator sports, museums, zoos, golf courses and fitness centers. That collection of industries is on track to produce $740 billion in goods and services this year, about 4.2% of U.S. private sector GDP.
Leisure and hospitality’s importance as an employer has increased over the decades. In 1950, leisure and hospitality employed 7.1% of U.S. private sector workers. By 2000, it employed 10.6% of U.S. private sector workers. In February 2020, the month before the pandemic hit, it employed nearly 17 million workers – 13.1% of U.S. private sector workers.
In Glynn, leisure and hospitality’s employment stats are mind-blowing. In 2000, leisure and hospitality accounted for 17.5% of total employment and 21.7% private sector employment in Glynn. In 2019, the figures were even higher: 22.1% of total employment and 27% of private sector employment.
Leisure and hospitality’s employment growth did not come easy.
In the U.S. from 2000 to 2019, leisure and hospitality employment grew by 39.8%, while the labor force grew by 14.7%. In Glynn from 2000 to 2019, leisure and hospitality employment grew by 32.3%, while the labor force grew by 11.4% — and all of that 11.4% occurred between 2000 and 2005.
Workers have plenty of employment options, so every business must compete with other businesses for workers. The competition intensifies when the demand for workers in a growing industry increases at a faster rate than the labor force. Businesses in a growing industry must draw workers away from businesses in other industries, which might also be growing.
Such a situation, though not uncommon, is certainly challenging, and the leisure and hospitality industry clearly met the challenge.
Things have changed since the pandemic.
The U.S. economic recovery from the pandemic recession has been truly remarkable. Current employment exceeds February 2020 employment in nine of eleven major industries. The two industries with employment losses since February 2020 are health services and leisure and hospitality. The employment loss in health services is modest: 0.4 percent. The loss in leisure and hospitality is not modest: 7.2 percent.
In accommodation, an industry within leisure and hospitality, the employment loss since February 2020 is 18.8 percent.
Why the exodus of workers from leisure and hospitality?
I put that question to Dr. Matt Mosley, Professor of Hospitality and Tourism Management at the College of Coastal Georgia. His explanation runs as follows.
Most workers view their skills too narrowly. They consider their skills to be highly specialized, of value to employers in their current industry but of little or no value to employers in other industries. Consequently, when searching for a better job, they confine their search to the industry in which they are currently employed.
The assumption that one’s skills are of little or no value to employers in other industries has long been prevalent among leisure and hospitality workers, says Dr. Mosley.
The pandemic changed that.
The shutting-down of so many leisure and hospitality businesses during the pandemic forced many Leisure and Hospitality workers to search for jobs in other industries. Those workers soon discovered that not only do employers in other industries value their skills, employers in other industries are willing to pay more for those skills than employers in leisure and hospitality. Word gets around. Hence, the exodus.
Dr. Mosley’s economic reasoning is sound, and his explanation and the data fit hand-in-glove. If he’s right, then, as he puts it, “It’s a wake-up call to the industry.”
Reg Murphy Center