When the decision was made to keep the pool at Fort Wayne's Memorial Park closed for the 2019 season, the Parks and Recreation Department got no complaints, Director Steve McDaniel said.

The pool's closure came up at Tuesday's City Council meeting during a discussion on funding for new fences for the pools at McMillen and Northside parks. The conversation, however, touched on a wider issue several city departments face when hiring summer employees.

More than 100 seasonal city jobs went unfilled last summer, despite the availability of funding.

The city of Fort Wayne offers 531 summer jobs, spokesman John Perlich said. The Parks Department has the greatest need at 471 positions, followed by the Street Department at 30. Traffic Operations has 15 available summer positions; Neighborhood Code has nine; Water Maintenance and Service has two; and Solid Waste has four.

Of the available positions, only 409 were filled last year, Perlich said.

The pool at Memorial Park is one example of the city's hiring challenge. Even though the facility was ready to open, Parks and Recreation didn't have enough staff – particularly lifeguards – to operate.

It's not that people aren't using the facilities. Attendance at Northside Park's pool was 21,813 in 2019, McDaniel said. Attendance at McMillen Park's pool was 8,429.

Part of the problem is some potential applicants aren't confident enough in their swimming skills to apply, McDaniel said. To remedy that, the department has started a program to make sure applicants are confident in their aquatic skills before they start the other required training. The department has also reached out to all area high school swim teams hoping to entice some of those athletes to apply.

McDaniel said the Parks Department – and all city departments that need summer help – compete with private businesses for seasonal help. The department typically hires between 65 and 70 seasonal employees for its aquatics facilities, in particular, but hired only 56 last year, he said.

“Because of the way the economy is, you could go out and find a job in 10 different places. That's not always been the case,” McDaniel said. “Some years we had lots of applicants and filled every position we had. Other years, it's slim with who's out there applying.

“That has caused some trouble where we haven't been able to fill all of the positions.”

The pools are open from 12:30 to 5 p.m., McDaniel added, which might not be ideal for some students trying to maximize their hours during the summer.

Many seasonal positions, especially some of the summer jobs with the Parks Department, are held by teens and young adults, often students on a break from school.

A 2018 analysis of teen summer jobs by global outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas Inc. noted that “teens can certainly benefit from the tight labor market, especially as employers struggle to fill positions.” Teens gained 1,338,000 jobs in 2018, the analysis found.

In an email, Colleen Madden, the firm's director of public relations, said employers nationwide added 1.73 million teen jobs during the 2019 season. Teens gained the most jobs nationwide since 2001, she added.

It's difficult, if not impossible to come by “hard and fast” numbers for how many seasonal jobs are created in Fort Wayne and Allen County, said Rick Farrant, spokesman for Northeast Indiana Works. Employers in every industry throughout the region are having trouble finding workers, regardless if they are part-time, full-time or seasonal jobs, he added.

“That is, barring any significant barriers to employment, anyone who is able to work can find a job,” Farrant said. “At the same time, the pool of available workers continues to slide as people increasingly leave the workforce largely through retirements.”

Current projections, Farrant said, indicate Allen County will have 261,489 job openings in the next 10 years. Openings are defined as projected job growth; retirements or people leaving the region; and people changing occupations.

To encourage people to apply for a seasonal job, the Parks Department will host a couple of job fairs in the spring, McDaniel said.

“We're competing with everyone else that's looking for summer help,” he said. “But in my mind, there's no better place to work than in a park. We want to encourage (job-seekers) to look at the different things we have to offer and hopefully we can find the right spot for them and fill some of these voids.”

Pay might also be an issue. On Tuesday, when asked by City Councilman Paul Ensley, R-1st, how much public pool lifeguards make, McDaniel said the range is between $9 and $11 an hour.

The most common seasonal positions offered by the city, Perlich said, are seasonal maintenance, pool attendants and lifeguards, preschool youth programming staff and day camp staff.

Employees who hold the most common summer jobs earn from $8.25 to $11 an hour, Perlich said.

He said the fact that the city has more available jobs than candidates and lower-wage scales than private companies has contributed to hiring difficulties.

According to public employee compensation data compiled by the state, most of the city's 34 lifeguards earned between $1,200 and $5,100 in 2018. Data for 2019 was not yet available through the state's online portal.

On Tuesday, when Ensley asked whether the Parks Department would consider raising lifeguards' pay, McDaniel said it's under consideration.

“We will be looking at it, across the board, Parks and Recreation, and if we get back that it is salary alone, then we will look at possibly increasing it,” McDaniel told the council. “A lot of times we hear though it's other things too. It's the time of when they can work, it's a lot of different things.”

It's possible there could be another shortage of lifeguards this year, as well, but McDaniel said he hopes the training clinic and job fair will give the department the boost it needs.

The city is also “working through some internal strategies on other proactive ways to engage with prospective employees, including social media and other tactics,” Perlich said.

“Our hope is with the additional outreach, we're going to get enough applicants where we'll have all three pools up and operational,” McDaniel said. “It's always our goal to offer enough recreational opportunities and we're hopeful that these additional steps will encourage those that might not have applied to apply.”

dgong@jg.net