Hills tourist industry short of foreign workers

By Steve Miller, Journal staff | Tuesday, April 15, 2008

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Sihandsi Candri scurries around the lobby of the Days Inn on La Crosse Street, scrubbing windows, vacuuming and straightening chairs. Nearby, Eko Kurniawan methodically folds towels in the hotel’s laundry room. 

Candri and Kurniawan are Indonesians who came to the United States last summer to work. They’ve been at the Days Inn since.

They’re excellent employees, says Diane Heinis, owner of the Days Inn and the nearby Comfort Inn. They’re willing to do whatever task needs done, including the menial but essential job of cleaning hotel rooms.

The only problem is that there aren’t enough of them, Heinis said.

Employers throughout the country, particularly tourist operators, increasingly depend on foreign workers to do work that they say Americans simply won’t do, such as cleaning motel rooms and washing dishes in restaurants.

Many of the foreign workers come to the U.S. through the H2B program.

But the number of foreign workers allowed in the country under the H2B program is capped at 66,000.

The cap was reached four years ago, according to Sandie Azinger of Hot Springs, who heads International Hospitality Resources Agency, which recruits and places foreign workers.

Then the cap was split, with 33,000 allowed in the winter months and 33,000 for the summer, Azinger said.

“As people have learned about this seasonal work force and as more employers want to hire legally, more employers have turned to this as a resource for seasonal staffing,” Azinger said. “There’s a shortage all over the country.”

That has made it difficult to get enough foreign workers, according to Azinger and others in the Black Hills tourist industry.

“One of my clients normally would have about 175 people,” Azinger said. “They’re sitting at just over 100. The only reason they have as many as they do is they’ve been in the program six years and they have a lot of people who come back every summer.”

Some Hills area employers who have had eight to 10 foreign workers every summer have none for this year, she said.

Heinis says she tries to get 12 foreign H2B workers for her two hotels for the summer months. In past years, she’s gotten 10. So far this year, she has three.

Xanterra Parks & Resorts, the company that has the concessions at Mount Rushmore, originally sought 30 foreign workers for this summer under H2B but dropped that request to 15 when the cap was reached, according to Xanterra human resources manager Paulette Rooney.

Rooney said Xanterra would make up the difference with foreign workers through another program, which is used primarily by foreign students to come to the U.S. to work. But they are typically limited to only three or four months, she said.

At Custer State Park, Regency Hotel Management will be about 40 workers short this year, according to general manager Josh Schmaltz. Last year, about 140 foreign workers were included in the roughly 300 Regency employees, Schmaltz said. They do tasks including housekeeping, cooking, food serving, staffing the front desk and maintaining the grounds.

Stepped-up recruiting efforts among area college students may help fill some of the positions, but not all, Schmaltz said. “We’re going to have to push through the season without them.”

Schmaltz said because of the cap on H2B workers, it’s probably going to get harder to get them.

But he said the improved recruiting could turn out to be a positive. “It could help us get more college students back.”

Bill Honerkamp, president of Black Hills, Badlands & Lakes Association, said he’s hearing similar reports from motels, restaurants and tourist attractions throughout the Black Hills.

The temporary foreign workers are valuable to the tourist industry, Honerkamp said. “They work hard, and they will work all the hours they can,” he said. “They’ll take jobs that go begging from applicants locally.”

He said there are probably hundreds of jobs for foreign workers in the Black Hills area.

In 2005, 61 employers sought to fill 1,161 positions with foreign workers under the H2B program, according to state Labor Department figures. The high-water mark for H2B in South Dakota was 2004, when 92 employers had 1,689 openings. In 2000, just 17 companies were involved, and they had only 235 jobs to fill.

Azinger said employers must go through a long process to get foreign workers, including proving to the state Labor Department that they have tried to hire locally first (see related story).

“The problem is an employer can start the process in November and before they even get approval to hire foreign workers, the cap is hit,” Azinger said.

Many local tourist employers are trying harder to hire locals.

Schmaltz said Regency has stepped up its recruiting efforts to fill positions at the park resorts. “We’ve gone to all of the universities, job fairs, things like that, and down to the reservations for their job fairs,” Schmaltz said.

Regency has raised the pay, which ranges from $1,000 to $2,500 a month. Regency, like other tourist operators, also gives bonuses for workers who stay through the end of the season.

Workers also get free meals and free board in the revamped dormitories in the park.

Pay typically runs from $7 to $9 an hour for both foreign and American workers who clean rooms and do other chores at the Days Inn and Comfort Inn, Heinis said. She said the H2B program doesn’t allow lesser pay for foreign workers.

Heinis said the foreign workers, particularly Asians, are frugal and send a lot of their money home to their families.

Candri, 26, said she sends money home to her family in Jakarta.

Candri said she makes good money.

“We feel happy here,” Candri said. “All the people here are so friendly.”

But both Candri and Kurniawan have higher aspirations.

They both studied the hospitality industry in college back home.

“We don’t want to be housekeepers forever,” Candri said.

  Heinis said foreign workers have an opportunity to learn a lot about the hospitality industry here. At her hotels, they get good training and are improving their English, she said.

Most of the foreign workers are good to work with, Heinis said. “I’ve just enjoyed the experience of being around them. They’ve been a godsend.”

She, like others in the tourist industry here, hopes Congress raises the cap on the number of temporary foreign workers allowed.

But Azinger said many in Congress, like many in the country, have a misguided idea that the temporary foreign workers are taking jobs away from Americans.

She said her clients are looking hard at alternatives to hiring foreign workers who are more and more difficult to get.

Some, like Heinis, are hiring work-release prisoners and people from Black Hills Workshop.

 “They’re doing everything they can to hire Americans,” Azinger said. “You just can’t force Americans to clean rooms.”

Contact Steve Miller at 394-8417 or steve.miller@rapidcityjournal.com