Help Wanted!
During the last month of spring, before the summer truly starts, there’s always an influx of “help wanted” signs placed in storefront windows.
In preparation for vacationing families and heat-loving locals looking to take advantage of the welcoming weather, businesses always seem to hire en masse around this time of the year. And thanks to the additional labor from summer job-seeking high schoolers and college students, there are plenty of hiring options. On the surface, it sounds easy to find an employer or an employee, especially given that the Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported that national unemployment was at 3.9 percent.
But, is finding work really that simple? Depending on who’s asked, the answers vary pretty radically.
Most job seekers and employees interviewed for this story did not have any problem finding work on Daniel Island or in Charleston.
The teenagers
Daniel Island resident Jacob Crowley is a biochemistry major at Clemson home for the summer. During the next few months before school starts, the rising sophomore is spending time earning extra money as a delivery guy for Dominos. When reflecting on his job search, he says that he had no trouble at all finding a gig for the summer, with some caveats.
“In Charleston, I wouldn’t say it’s difficult at all, as long you’re not looking for a job that has set hours,” says Crowley. “With both the jobs I’ve worked in Charleston, it’s been very hectic with the hours.”
For his purposes, Crowley says that it was easy enough to find work, but mentioned that, in his view, there might be a limit to what Daniel Island can offer in the job market.
“If you don’t want to work in the food industry, you probably have to go off the Island,” he says.
Bishop England junior Mary Beth Thrower shares the sentiment that it’s easy to find work on Daniel Island. The 17-year-old works at O2 Fitness, Honeycomb Cafe, and the Daniel Island Marina, on top of regularly babysitting.
“I have problems finding free time,” she laughs.
The recent college
graduate
Recent graduate Will Kramer, a former Daniel Island resident, says he was confronted with the “usual difficulties and challenges that one would face” upon finishing up his time at Baylor University in 2016 with a finance degree. Before landing his current job as the middle school pastor at East Cooper Baptist Church in Mt. Pleasant, Kramer applied for a position at Gildan and had an informal lunch with a member of Blackbaud’s sales department. He worked at Chick-Fil-A for several months as he waited for something else and was eventually offered the position at East Cooper Baptist from his high school mentor.
“I just kind of never did a lot of looking around and researching on DI,” says Kramer, who believes that finding work in the area is not too difficult of a task.
The experienced worker
Director of Education at the National Golf Course Owners Association Boots Gifford seemed to be the only employee interviewed that had any difficulties finding work, searching for about two months. The difference in Gifford’s experience is that she was searching for something related to her specific field. After working in journalism for over 20 years at several community newspapers and the Denver Business Journal, Gifford moved to Charleston to be closer to family. She chose to enter the publishing field because of its relatability to journalism. In her current position, she helps the NGCOA put on educational programming for its members.
The employers’ perspectives
Most employers were less optimistic about the state of the Daniel Island job market.
Vice President of the Daniel Island Club Greg Keating says that, while they are usually capable of filling open positions, there is a difficulty that comes along with it because of the service industry’s competitive nature.
“There’s just not a lot of people out there,” says Keating. “So, when we do advertise [open positions] we don’t get nearly as many applications as we would hope.”
Keating notes that during the summer there are no issues finding food and beverage workers, and overall the Daniel Island Club is able to find employees for their management roles with relative ease. Some of the problems with staffing may lie in the size of the Daniel Island Club, which can have up to 300 employees during its busiest season.
“We have a full complement of high school and college kids that come back to work year after year,” says Keating.
Laura Alberts General Manager Mike Herron feels frustration with the Daniel Island job market. His restaurant has been short staffed for almost six months, including kitchen staff and front of house workers.
“I attribute it to lack of motivation to actually come out here [to Daniel Island] to work,” he says. “All these restaurants out here are paying taxes to the city, but there’s no form of public transportation for people to get out here.”
In addition, Herron believes that Daniel Island’s populace is not looking for work in a restaurant, increasing the public transportation problem.
“The general population of Daniel Island does not fit the type of person we need to work in a restaurant,” says Herron. “I’ve worked here four years and generally the main demographic of people is a young professional or a retiree or they have a family.”
The Domino's on Daniel Island has been open almost a year and they, too, have experienced difficulties in finding the right applicants. They are currently in the market for 10 delivery drivers and five inside staff members.
“It’s very hard to get people who have availability to work every day,” said Kerri Saunders, owner of the Daniel Island franchise and a number of other Domino's locations in the Charleston region. “We need delivery drivers, bike riders, and team members to make pizzas and answer phones….and we’re always hiring management candidates as well across the board.”
When looking at the Daniel Island job market, it’s hard not to notice the large amount of jobs in the service and hospitality industries. Granted, this is nothing unique to Daniel Island. The food and beverage industry is always looking for waiters, bartenders, line cooks, and any other jobs that keeps a kitchen running smoothly. But, it does beg the question: What about opportunities for upper-level positions like food service management, accounting, or jobs outside of the hospitality field?
Vice President of Blackbaud’s Talent Acquisition Peggy Anderson says her company is “continuously” hiring. Despite the staggering size of Blackbaud’s workforce, roughly 1300 employees in their Daniel Island headquarters, Anderson made it clear that they “don’t have a problem filling the jobs here and finding talent.” Jobs at the company range from customer support, finance, software engineering, and everything in between. And, even though she states that Blackbaud has no issue with hiring, she did concede that certain positions, such as software engineer, take longer to fill.
Anderson said that from Blackbaud’s view the competitive job market is something to thrive in. “From an employer perspective, I think it’s definitely a positive,” she says. “You have a pipeline of candidates to look at and to consider. If you’re an employee, it’s a little more difficult.”
When reflecting on the different viewpoints of the Daniel Island job market from the people on the front lines, there are certainly a lot of factors to take into account. Food service is clearly a popular avenue. Comparing the number of those jobs to everything else the local job market has to offer, the ratio is stacked in the service industry’s favor. But, as Herron and Saunders expressed earlier, attracting job applicants isn’t always easy. The key to the problem could be as simple as spreading the word to the other districts in the Holy City -- when it comes to jobs, Daniel Island is open for business.