Filling the Gaps

BY GRACE HOBSON

Service industries suffer with skeleton crews and a meager outlook as tourist season approaches

Due to a decrease in the distribution of temporary work visas and the rise of COVID-19, restaurant owners and the hospitality industry in Virginia Beach have suffered immense staffing shortages.

“[Staffing shortages are] an existential threat for people in the hospitality industry, and any industry,

if we don’t have a workforce,” said George Kotarides, president of Dough Boy’s Pizza. There are a number of contributing factors affecting the lack of seasonal and permanent staffing availability in Virginia Beach. One that stands out is the decreased distribution of the H-2B visa. The H-2B visa program, as explained by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, is a temporary visa issued through a lottery system that allows U.S. employers who meet specific requirements to bring in foreign

workers to fill seasonal or temporary nonagricultural jobs. The number of H-2B visas distributed to foreign workers is generally capped at 66,000 a year and is divided into the winter and summer seasons. Workers who returned annually were exempt from the total until 2017 when immigration became an especially hot-button topic for a multitude of reasons, such as immigration critics arguing that the program takes jobs away from Americans. In December of 2021, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Labor announced a temporary final rule to allocate an additional 20,000 H-2B visas to U.S. employers seeking supplementary workers on or before March 31, 2022. Despite this change under the Biden administration, travel restrictions due to the recent spikes in COVID and the delta and omicron variants of the virus have stifled any chance of quashing the employment and staffing issues Virginia Beach is currently facing. Similarly, the J-1 student visa program is used to staff the

“For any restaurant or any business, if you don’t have people, you can’t operate. We’ve really just not seen people coming in the door looking for jobs.”

—GEORGE KOTARIDES

restaurant and hospitality industry in Virginia Beach. “[J-1 students] are usually college students who come from Eastern Europe and Asia, and basically they come over and get to learn about American life and culture,” explains John Zirkle, Jr., general manager of the Doubletree by Hilton in Virginia Beach and president of the Virginia Beach Hotel Association (VBHA). “Then, they work in hotels and restaurants and such while they’re here.” Again, travel restrictions and the rise of COVID cases have stifled any movement towards resolving staffing shortages in the area. “Really, since the pandemic started somewhat subsiding and the summer of 2020, we’ve just been struggling, and it hasn’t gotten any better, unfortunately,” said Zirkle. “In some instances, it’s actually gotten worse—over this past summer. I think at one point there were over 1,000 open positions throughout the hospitality industry in Virginia Beach, and that was just Virginia Beach. The lack of J-1 students being able to travel last year had a definite impact on us; the hospitality industry [in Virginia Beach] brings in about 700 to 900 J-1 students a year.” Staffing shortages have affected the hospitality industry in the area in many ways. “We’ve had to change our operations within a lot of the hotels,” said Zirkle. “A lot of hotel’s restaurants aren’t open every day of the week, or they’re not open for certain meal periods; due to staffing challenges many hotels are only doing housekeeping on a request basis…most hotel companies have greatly enhanced their digital offering, so guests can [have] digital [room] keys or digital check-in, which helps to be able to reduce your front desk staff to a degree.” According to Zirkle, the greatest challenge brought on by the staffing shortages in the area has been housekeeping accommodations. “There were hotels in Virginia Beach this past summer and year that couldn’t sell all of their rooms because they didn’t have enough staff to clean the rooms,” Zirkle said. “Some hotels kept 10, 20 or 50 rooms out of service just because there was no way they would be able to have them cleaned for guests to come and stay. [This has] a huge impact, especially in the summertime when rooms are going for $400 or $500 a night. To not be able to sell rooms because you can’t get proper staffing—it’s a big financial impact.” The restaurant industry in the

area isn’t looking any better. “For any restaurant or any business, if you don’t have people, you can’t operate. We’re paying 25% more money to 35% fewer people, and we still can’t attract enough staff; we’ve really just not seen people coming in the door looking for jobs,” Kotarides said. “I’ve never seen such a void of available people, and we’ve changed our entire operation in our restaurants. The good side of it is we’ve become more efficient—we’ve reduced our menu, reduced our need for front of the house service staff and changed the way we operate in order to require fewer people; we’ve been operating the way we were for 30 years, and we had to turn on a dime in order to survive.”

Grace Hobson is a junior attending Virginia Tech and studying multimedia journalism. She’s also a self-proclaimed Catan champion with an undying love for Master Yoda and is just trying to make her past professor of media writing proud.

“There were hotels in Virginia Beach this past summer and year that couldn’t sell all of their rooms because they didn’t have enough staff to clean the rooms.”

—JOHN ZIRKLE, JR.

Mentoring the Future Workforce

Annette Dunbar (left) grew up in a very large family, and was inspired by her father’s willingness to give to his community. “Even though we had 16 kids in my family, my dad would still take care of other families and other kids,” Dunbar said. “He would let them live in the house; if the kids needed coats, he would go buy the whole family coats on Friday when he got paid.” It is in that same spirit that she has worked with youth in her own community for more than 45 years through the Church of God In Christ and other organizations. Dunbar had been connecting with the youth on both state and national levels; the children involved in her programs have gone on to become lawyers, doctors, recording artists, preachers and military officers. Last year she decided to make it official: Dunbar started her own organization dedicated to helping children in Virginia Beach receive training for managerial and entrepreneurship positions in the area. Named in honor of her father (and his nickname, Socks), Saving Our Kids Community Services launched in December 2021 with a huge toy drive for children. “Many kids were blessed with bikes, electric scooters and many other things,” said Dunbar. After years of finding and funding opportunities for the youth out of pocket, an official oganization was a logical step. “Many people were bringing their programs to me—a lot of people in the community, they had the resources, but they didn’t have any kids,” said Dunbar. “Every summer, I was [connecting kids] from one [program] to another program. But when the summer’s over, the kids still need things to do in the fall, the winter and spring. [SOCKS is a] boots on the ground organization—we connect the kids to the resources, and the resources to the kids.” SOCKS is now partnering with the VBHA and

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Virginia Beach Restaurant Association (VBRA) in order to train the youth for jobs in both industries along with other local businesses, mentors, churches and the Virginia Cooperative Extension program with the city of Virginia Beach. “We are going to get these kids trained; we’re going to teach them now, while they’re young, how to do hospitality, how to service and how to fill out a job application,” Dunbar said. “So a lot of the businesses have agreed to partner with us and to bring the kids in for summer workshops and winter workshops. [The VBRA and VBHA] agreed to help train kids with job readiness, and the ones that are of age, they’re going to hire them. When I was young, anybody that used to walk to the oceanfront could get a job. So we are just trying to build a relationship with the restaurants and the hotels in the area, and make sure that the kids are getting quality training, and quality pay as well.”

Above is a young Devette Olds. At right is Maj. Devette Olds— who now holds the position of associate and global training and operations of military development programs for Bank of America. She has been mentored by Annette Dunbar for more than 35 years, and her own children continue the trend, participating in Dunbar’s programs for years now.