OCEAN CITY, Md. - With Ocean City's peak summer season arriving quickly, some businesses on the boardwalk say they are still looking to fill positions to better meet the soon-to-be-increasing demand.
Some businesses on the boardwalk say they aren't expecting J-1 students until mid-June, but others say they have been able to get by.
According to the Town of Ocean City, Ocean City hires one of the highest numbers of J-1 employees in the entire country, and has also utilized this system for one of the longest periods of time.
The town says that before COVID-19 erupted, the town saw times when roughly 4500 J-1 students were employed. That number then dropped, and has since stabilized at closer to 3700 J-1 students.
"It's always tough in May," Dolle Bushnell says. "It is a tough spot, but it's something that we're used to. It seems like, because of the weather and the season, it almost has slid. So that we're really not busy until the second week in June."
With school and other obligations, the town says part of why utilizing the J-1 students is so crucial is that there simply aren't enough American employees to fill the necessary job opening gaps.
"I know it's raining and everything but it is disappointing to see all the businesses closed right now, we're down here with my two and a half year old son," says Brady. "People around here they wait for these few months of the summer, that's their entire livelihood. They wait all year for people to come down here, and they live off of the tourist season. Every extra week, extra month, extra day counts for them."
But until those summer workers arrive, for many ocean city businesses, the sweetest season of the year is still stuck waiting behind closed doors.
