NEW ORLEANS — The fourth surge of COVID-19 cases is hitting Louisiana as the local tourism and hospitality industry is still struggling to find enough workers.
It is one of the most important sectors of the local economy and there have been positive trends, but the delta variant is casting a cloud over the recovering economy.
We visited a “job fest” hosted by New Orleans and Co. Thursday to see what kind of concerns people have about the Delta variant and the latest precautions prompted by the current wave of COVID.
We met Janice Collins a few minutes after arriving at the Smoothie King Center. At her age, trying to get back into the food industry wasn’t what Collins had planned. Collins said she had spent most of her working life in the food industry.
“I thought when I made 72, I’d be running around with my grandchildren and stuff like that, but life is life," Collins said. "You get kicked down, you got to get back up."
The hospitality and tourism sector of New Orleans certainly didn’t plan on enduring a fourth surge of COVID. It’s been busy trying to find enough workers to meet demands from what’s been a growing number of visitors.
“It hasn’t been a complete recovery by any means, but primarily around April we started seeing a steady stream of visitors into the city,” said Kelly Schulz, senior vice president of marketing and public relations for New Orleans and Co.
Roughly a year-and-a-half into the pandemic and with vaccines widely available, we are once again masking up and some worry about lockdowns.
“We are closely watching Delta. We haven’t had any major cancellations, but I think if we’ve learned anything in the past year-and-a-half is to adapt,” Schulz said.
Thursday’s job fest was the third of its kind this year. Schulz estimates 25,000 thousand hospitality jobs still need to be filled, and this fourth surge of COVID is complicating that mission.
“My concern is with the Delta variant and more cases of COVID coming up every day in Louisiana, that things are going to shut down, festivals are going to shut down there’s going to be restrictions with travel,” Alba Huddleston said.
Huddleston is considering a job in hospitality, but she questions if now is the right time to get into a line of work that is so dependent on crowds and so directly affected by changing COVID guidelines.
“So, my concern is if I was looking for a job would be getting a job and then getting laid off later,” Huddleston said.
Job security and good pay are things many of us want. Janice Collins hopes the service industry can do better in offering both to people they’ve called essential.
“It is so hard for you to survive to live, to feed your family, send your kids to school, have a roof over your head, have good health. We need to be paid more money. We are worth it,” Collins said.
The economic equation to get more people back to work has been filled with different factors. The latest variable is the Delta variant