After losing a dramatic number of jobs in 2021, the vacation rental industry is now scrambling to find workers. Extenteam, a staffing provider for vacation rental and short-term rental professionals, has released its U.S. Accommodations State of the Workforce Report. We sat down with Extenteam co-founder Luke Bujarski to discuss what vacation rental companies could do to recruit workers.
The U.S. Accommodations State of the Workforce Report is an insights series tracking the latest labor market trends and data to understand the recovery of America’s accommodations workforce. With the economy and travel opening back up, the accommodations industry needs to prepare for a long climb back to full employment. The pandemic and resulting travel restrictions created a huge gap in all manner of roles in hospitality. As of April 1st, The nation remained at a 30 percent jobs deficit, with certain cities and states functioning at less than 50 percent capacity relative to pre-pandemic.
As Luke explains, one issue is that some staff have retrained and gone out of the hospitality sector. In areas like Orlando, it has become difficult to find people who want to work for the short-term rental industry.
In traditional vacation rentals markets (sea, mountain, and rural regions), vacation rental bookings are actually in bigger numbers than in 2019. So, companies need more boots on the ground, at a moment where there are fewer people available.
As Extenteam can help companies find remote workers who can deal with reservations and guest messaging, Luke advises companies to outsource part of the work, so that resources available on location can help prepare accommodations for guests.
