For the second consecutive year, Tennessee tourism leaders are spending their marketing dollars to try to recruit not just visitors but workers to help staff the attractions, accommodations and food services in the state’s $22 billion-a-year hospitality industry.
Both the state-funded Tennessee Department of Tourist Development and the locally funded Chattanooga Tourism Co. are relaunching campaigns this spring to help fill vacant jobs in Tennessee’s second-biggest industry.
With unemployment near historic lows, filling the 150,000 hospitality jobs across Tennessee is proving difficult this year. Among the 457,323 job openings listed Tuesday at Tennessee Career Centers, there are nearly 28,000 in food service and hospitality-related jobs that are still vacant on the state’s job listing website, jobs4tn.gov.
“The job market is still a very difficult challenge for us, and the number of candidates to fill those jobs is still fairly thin,” Hugh Morrow, president of Ruby Falls on Lookout Mountain and chairman of the Chattanooga Tourism Co., said in a phone interview. “There is still a lot of job hiring to be done, and any students or persons looking for a seasonal or a part-time job, there are lots of opportunities.”
Morrow said Ruby Falls could probably use nearly 25% more workers than what it now has as it prepares for the traditionally busy summer travel season ahead.