With skiing winding down, seasonal employees who work at Park City’s ski resorts are trying to answer one question: what’s next?
Stacey Taylor, director of human resources at Deer Valley Resort, said many employees this time of year are busy finding summer employment. The resort retains about 250 to 300 of its roughly 2,800 winter employees — many of whom live locally — to work during the summer. But many of the rest must find something new.
Deer Valley helps, Taylor said. The resort offers twice-weekly counseling sessions to help employees with their resumes and offer advice about job searching. It also tries to find opportunities for employees that would allow them to return to the resort next winter.
“We try to coordinate with employers who have the opposite season as us,” Taylor said. “We have them come in, so some of our staff can do winter here and summers there. We also connect with local state parks and golf courses here so they can try to find the summer staff they need. The good thing about that is it keeps people local. It allows them to have two seasonal jobs that stay in the Park City area.”
Joseph Elick, who has worked as a conveyor operator for Deer Valley each of the last two winters, said finding a job for the summer isn’t as daunting as it can seem. Many employees are able to line something up well before the ski season ends, he said.
Last year, Elick, who lives in Midway, worked at a painting business in the summer. He is staying on at Deer Valley this summer.
“I knew other people who were a little worried,” he said. “But usually, with how Park City is growing, anyone local can find a job. The mountain biking industry is growing, construction is always big in the summer. So there are a lot of jobs that are open. It’s not too hard.”
Taylor said helping employees find summer work benefits Deer Valley. Many of those workers return each year, making operations run more smoothly at the beginning of the ski season because they do not need much training.
“I wholeheartedly believe that,” Taylor said. “We have one of the highest retention rates in the whole ski industry. We have about 1,900 people that return each year, which is just a great number. We still have to find about 800 to 900 new people each season, but that high return rate is because employees are happy.”
For seasonal employees who are struggling to find summer work, Nic Dunn, spokesman for the Utah Department of Workforce Services, recommended utilizing the agency’s assistance. The agency organizes hiring events and also offers online resources, such as a job database, on its website, jobs.utah.gov.
A representative from Canyons Resort and Park City Mountain Resort declined an opportunity to comment.