Ocean City Still Needs to Hire More Staff for Summer Season

OCEAN CITY, MD. - Memorial Day weekend in Ocean City seemed to go off without a hitch although the weather wasn't the best.

Johnny Brooks, the founder and general manager of the Crabcake Factories said the rainy weather helped with business.

"We were a little worried with the weather forecast. On one hand, it's great when you have nice sunny weather down the beach but also as a business when it rains, that kind of drives people into the businesses," Brooks said. "So from what I've heard around town, all the food establishments were pretty busy," he said.

Although leading up to the start of summer, Ocean City has had issues with finding summer employees from servers to lifeguards and even finding housing for J1 students.

But as Memorial Day kicked off the start of summer businesses like Hoopers Crabhouse said they feel comfortable with the staff they have. 

Brandon Snyder, steam room manager at Hoopers Crabhouse said, "We've had a lot of returning loyal employees which makes it possible for us to open in the slow time of the year," Snyder said.

"But we also have 30 J1 students from places like Romania and the Dominican Republic coming to work with us so that is really gonna get us up to speed for the season," he said. 

While the beach patrol isn't quite there yet when it comes to staffing. Mike Stone, a Lieutenant in the Ocean City Beach Patrol said things will hopefully change.

"We're not fully staffed, but that's typical for this time of year," Stone said. "We still have people that are finishing up school, we have a number of school teachers, they'll be done in about two to three weeks and ready to work the beach," he said.

Some like Johnny Brooks, who owns the Crabcake Factories, said the cost of housing and lack of rentals is a big factor as to the hiring woes of a lot of businesses.

"People don't have a place to come down, you should be able to come down as a college student or young adult and find a rental but it's just so high priced  for seasonal rentals, that businesses are having problems keeping staff," Brooks said.

The Beach Patrol hopes to be fully staffed by the Fourth of July but they will be having more lifeguard tests on June 3 and June 7 in Ocean City.