I live in a touristy town that does this with J1 workers. I'll tell you why: The jobs pay $7.25/hour.
The J1s are then packed like sardines into houses where they pay rent by the week. Why by the week? To remind them they're expendable and can be deported at a moment's notice by the restaurant/hotel/amusement park/etc. they work at. The worst I've heard is 16 people living in a 3-bedroom, 1 bathroom house.
The J1s themselves are typically great people. A lot of them do everything they can to stay in the area via Green Cards or whatever. Business that treat their J1s like shit are usually blacklisted by locals, too. We'll actively tell tourists not to give those businesses any business and why.
People are willing to take a discount on their wages and quality of life for the intangible benefit of ‘the experience of living and working abroad for a summer’.
For non-native English speakers it also has the advantage of providing a free total immersion language course as well. People pay for opportunities like that.
So yes, an Italian 19 year old is willing to work for less money for the chance to work in a water park for a summer, improving their English and boosting their resume, and if it gives them enough money to be able to fund a couple of weekend trips to New York or DC so much the better. It’s a life experience and a working vacation.
That local 19 year olds are not seeing the same advantages to that sort of work isn’t surprising.
>That local 19 year olds are not seeing the same advantages to that sort of work isn’t surprising.
Which should be pretty revolting for them if that's the case. Instead of American 19 year olds making some summer money at the waterpark to buy their first car, they get moved aside by disposable foreign workers, so then they need to stay supported by their parents for longer till they can get a "proper" job.
And I'm European not American, but I see the same issue here. Getting minimum wage jobs in the hospitality/service sector is super competitive now due to pressure from migrant workers who will accept anything. These are jobs that used to be done by teenagers in the past for summer money but not anymore.
Employers everywhere being able allowed to min/max wages against the most desperate labor on the planet should be banned.
And then governments have the audacity to complain about people not having kids anymore. Well no shit, my dad and his peers had summer jobs since he was 14 because there were no migrant workers to replace them, and after finishing high school he already had a job in the factory with housing benefits, he was already making enough money to have a family and 2 kids, not one.
The result for the local American 19 year olds is that ticket prices at their local water park are kept low enough that they can afford to go there to cool off and be handed towels by foreign teenagers.
If the government cut off the seasonal work visas, tourist destination hospitality businesses would have to increase prices, some would go out of business, and American tourists’ quality of life would be lower.
>The result for the local American 19 year olds is that ticket prices at their local water park are kept low enough that they can afford to go there to cool off and be handed towels by foreign teenagers.
And where are 19 year old Americans getting money for water parks if they don't have jobs? Still having hobbies funded by your parents at 19 isn't really a societal win.
You say 30-50 years ago they couldn't afford that because labor costs were too high? Maybe they had jobs to pay those higher costs?
This is a lump of labor fallacy.
By finding a ready source of people willing to staff the water park at a lower price, more ‘water park amenity’ is available at a lower price.
This frees up the labor of local teenagers who can now be employed in other roles, producing other useful things for society, like… I don’t know what teenagers do nowadays. Provide market-clearing services on Kalshi by placing bad bets? Upload short form video to TikTok to enable ad buyers to find customers?
>By finding a ready source of people willing to staff the water park at a lower price, more ‘water park amenity’ is available at a lower price.
Or same prices but higher margins for the owner.
Which leads to more water parks existing.
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Same thing with au pairs and childcare work: https://www.npr.org/2019/01/09/683831264/au-pair-sponsor-age.... It’s basically below minimum wage.
Exactly. Au pairs are super common in Europe too, I even know of American ones.
The appeal for foreigners is living temporarily in Germany, Switzerland, etc.
It's an exchange: the host offers a roof, pays next to nothing for a live-in nanny, etc.
It's tourism + work.
I don't think anyone would do this as a career, and locals just do it in another country.
I believe there is an age-out age for being an au-pair, 26 I think, so it isn't possible to make a career out of it.
I'm talking about the "the host offers a roof, pays next to nothing for a live-in nanny" arrangement, which locals don't do.
Interestingly the 26 refers to the USA. But a similar career would be legally possible inside the USA (not under the program) but not in EU, due to heavy labour regulations.
If this is like what I saw in Maine coastal tourist towns this summer I suspect its popular with Europeans because the $15.10/hour local wage is attractive. But more so it's because you get to spend time a few months in a beautiful location surrounded by other attractive young people. Party scene is probably great.
I suspect you're correct on that front, too. I have family in an area that has been bringing in European teens to work seasonal tourist-facing jobs for probably(?) decades now. I can't speak to how they are treated outside my view, but anecdotally, they seem to really enjoy the opportunity. They get their little euro-crew together and basically have a College experience.
Locals like them, too - they're charming, generally well-behaved, polite, and it doesn't hurt that they don't have to pay them very much. I like to think the cultural exchange between the Europeans and the otherwise isolated locals is fantastic for broadening horizons, also.
Naturally, there’s an old This American Life episode about this which focuses on young international people who work summer at a highway rest stop.
Ep. 388
Oh, this was me 18 years ago. Worked a summer in Wyoming at a truck stop in the middle of the desert. It was kind of fun. Don't regret it a minute. My one and only trip to the US. People were warm and welcoming, if a bit wierd at times. The trip I did there with the Grayhound bus was _wild_. I think of my time there with fondness.
The right policy response would be telling the firms running these programs to get fucked if they can't successfully operate while paying staff the prevailing wage that local Americans would accept.
A nearby amusement park touted that they pay $20/hr. However it's seasonal, not year around. They raised wages because COVID-19 and current Administration policies decreased the supply of foreign college students who somehow had work authorization.
I learned this hiring practice in my home state of MN. The lake Superior North shore has resorts that hire these types of workers and pay them shit.
I agree. If the minimum wage is raised, there will be less incentives for businesses to hire cheap foreign workers.