So many rooms... so few workers

If there are fewer rides at the county fair this summer, or if the manager at the seaside hotel seems a bit frazzled, be kind. Thousands of employees whom businesses usually count on to get them through their peak tourist season aren't being allowed into the country this year.

Never before has the annual limit on temporary visa permits been reached so soon - early March. It was just halfway through the fiscal year, a time when many employers normally apply for summer workers. Without these core staff members - everyone from Jamaican cooks to South African carnival workers - some business owners warn they may have to scale back. And that, in turn, could pinch local economies.

"We are a catalyst when we come into town," says Ed Dame of Thebault-Blomsness, a traveling carnival company in Illinois. About 20 percent of a carnival's income usually goes to the school, church, or village that sponsors it, he says, "so if we can't make the money, it might cost a town a squad car or something." His application for visas (representing about 30 percent of his summer staff) didn't make it in before the cutoff.

This worker shortage represents a paradox in America's economy. At the same time that employers are begging for more foreign workers to handle the tourist season, more than half of the nation's teens appear unlikely to land summer jobs this year. And with worries about foreign competition for jobs already running high, it raises a key question: How difficult is it, really, to find Americans willing to do this work?

At resorts, you'll still find plenty of khaki-clad college students serving cold drinks by the pool. But as more of them opt for career-related internships, employers say few are willing to wash dishes or clean hotel rooms. Students they do hire often disappear before Labor Day. Staff from abroad are crucial, employers say, because they can stay through what has become an extended vacation season, lasting well into October. The summer snafu has prompted proposals on Capitol Hill to raise the cap on visas to 106,000 from the current 66,000.

Some experts have little sympathy for the employers' argument. There's no strong case for foreign labor when there are so many young people out of work, says Paul Harrington, an economist at Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies. The center reports that 42 percent of teenagers will be able to find jobs this summer. More broadly, about 14 percent of 16- to 24-year-olds are "idle" - unemployed and not in school - Mr. Harrington says.

"I understand that these [summer businesses] believe they have a very high- quality labor supply [from abroad]," he says, "but one of the ways you get a good work ethic is to get the experience ... and we're all better off long term if we get these kids engaged."

Andrea Larsen is one of those young people who hopes not to be idle much longer. At a job fair last month on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, she said she was happy with the current visa cap. "Almost everyone I know has been looking for a job," she said as she browsed the recruiters' tables. Discouragement set in a few months ago when she sensed that managers preferred foreign workers, but now she feels as if her prospects are good.

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