Park City Mountain Resort owner Vail Resorts on Monday said it will increase the firm’s minimum hourly wage to $20, a sharp increase from the $15-per-hour minimum that was instituted for the current ski season.
The $20-per-hour figure takes effect for the next ski season, Vail Resorts said in a statement. The firm said posts that require specific certification or experience, including entry-level ski patrollers, will have a starting hourly wage of $21. Vail Resorts will guarantee employees who receive tips will earn the $20 per hour minimum. Vail Resorts also said it “will also be assessing targeted increases, beyond inflation, for our salaried employees.”
Moves by Vail Resorts like the increase in the minimum wage can have an outsized impact in the Park City area with PCMR being such a large employer. The minimum wage at PCMR can influence pay scales at other businesses since there will be competition for employees at the $20-per-hour level that PCMR will pay in the 2022-2023 ski season.
Vail Resorts said the higher figure amounts to a wage increase averaging close to 30% for hourly workers at the firm’s properties in North America.
The move was announced in the final weeks of what has been a difficult ski season at PCMR. There have been widespread complaints about crowded slopes, long lift lines and closed terrain. In an appearance at City Hall in February, Mike Goar, the vice president and chief operating officer at PCMR, acknowledged the resort encountered challenges in staffing. He told Mayor Nann Worel and the Park City Council the lack of a full staff resulted in PCMR’s inability to open certain lifts and the related closures of terrain. The staffing issues also impacted food and beverage services, Goar said during the February meeting.
The $20-per-hour minimum equates to a little less than $42,000 annually if extended through 52 weeks. Employees at that figure would still struggle in Park City’s resort-driven real estate and rental markets. The cost of housing has made it difficult for rank-and-file workers like many of those whose wages will increase under the figures announced by Vail Resorts on Monday.
“We cannot create an Experience of a Lifetime for our guests without first creating an Experience of a Lifetime for you — unfortunately, we have fallen short on that,” Vail Resorts CEO Kirsten Lynch said in a Monday letter to Vail Resorts employees. “Addressing this requires a pivotal shift in our company’s direction with a new strategic focus on all of you — year-round and seasonal, hourly and salaried, mountain resorts and corporate. We are focused on providing each of you the resources and support you need to have an Experience of a Lifetime, and staying out front by making the necessary investments in you.”
The letter from Lynch, meanwhile, also addresses in broad terms a commitment to housing for the workers, saying “Affordable housing in our mountain communities is essential for so many of our employees. We know this has become harder for you as those mountain communities have grown.”
“We plan to aggressively pursue building new affordable housing on the land we own, and pursue company leases in existing affordable housing developments, so we can make housing more accessible and affordable for our employees,” she said.
The letter also said: “It requires mountain communities to be fully committed to affordable housing, and the approvals needed to allow us to build on the land we own. While we understand that some of our mountain communities have concerns about new developments, we believe it’s time for us, and our communities, to make affordable housing a top priority and accelerate the processes to ensure we collectively make progress.”
The letter did not provide details about the housing, including any plans for Park City.