Coronavirus delaying J-1 students arrival. Do Myrtle Beach employers still need them?
As Myrtle Beach area businesses are slowly being allowed to reopen, employers are trying to add staff, but a foreign exchange program they typically rely on during the summer is in flux.
More than 3,000 international students come to the Grand Strand area each summer, beginning to arrive in May, to work under the U.S. Department of State’s J-1 visa program, but that timeline has already been impacted by coronavirus.
Alex Ibanescu, a local representative for J-1 sponsor organization Cultural Homestay International, told The Sun News that they aren’t planning for any students to arrive in May and the earliest they’re expecting students is mid-to-late June.
Partly because of that delay and also due to health and safety concerns, Ibanescu said he’s seeing a lot of student cancellations, particularly from those in Jamaica — the country that sent the most students to the Myrtle Beach area in 2017 — because they typically arrive in early May.
There won’t be much clarity about when and how many J-1 students are allowed to come until U.S. foreign embassies reopen, he said.
Stephen Greene, president and CEO of the Myrtle Beach Area Hospitality Association, said his organization is still waiting on guidance from the U.S. Department of State about whether President Donald Trump’s recent statement about a 60-day immigration ban would apply to J-1 visas, and employers are getting anxious.
Mark Lazarus, Myrtle Beach Wild Water & Wheels and Broadway Grand Prix, conducted virtual interviews over the last few weeks with some students interested in the J-1 program. He has housing available for them but he doesn’t know if the students will be available before his target opening dates for his parks.
“They want to come, a lot of the areas they’re coming from are not hot spots. We just don’t know what their travel plans will be,” Lazarus said. “It is up in the air.”
Lazarus is moving forward under the assumption J-1 students will not be here when the governor allows outdoor attractions to reopen. His ideal goal — if the government allows it — is to have the Grand Prix open by Mother’s Day and the water park open by Memorial Day weekend.
First, Lazarus needs to bring back his employees that were laid off due to the economic downturn. He plans to start hiring, and he wants to employ locals looking for work.
“We will be going full steam on hiring bids once we know what we are allowed to do,” Lazarus said. “People are starting to come down and renting rooms. People want to go to the beach, but they also want other things to do. We hope to provide that for them in a safe manner.”
Employment concerns
Even as hotels and other short-term rental units are allowed to start renting to tourists beginning Friday, local officials are projecting a significant drop in tourism as would-be visitors have concerns about traveling during the pandemic.
But Greene said his members are not turning down any avenue for finding employees right now as they struggle to get former employees to return to work because of high unemployment payments, a concern many employers in the state are expressing.
The CARES Act, a COVID-19 aid package that was passed by Congress in late March, included a provision that provided an extra $600 a week for those applying for unemployment. The provision expires at the end of July.
There have been a total of 46,570 unemployment applications from Horry County since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in March.
According to guidance provided by the state Department of Employment and Workforce to the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, laid off and furloughed employees would be risking unemployment checks by refusing to return.
“It’s important for employers and employees to understand the $600/week federal benefit is tied directly to the state benefit. Meaning that if an employee stops receiving their weekly state benefit, they will also stop receiving their weekly federal benefit,” according to Karen Riordan, the chamber’s president and CEO.
The state’s eligibility guidelines specify that a person can only collect unemployment benefits if you’re available to work and willing to accept any “suitable offer,” Riordan wrote, so an employer looking to rehire laid-off employees would trigger that offer and cause them to lose their benefits.
A “suitable offer,” as defined by the DEW, “includes any trade, occupation, or business in which you are qualified based on your training or experience, and which pays at least 90% of your previous salary during your first eight paid weeks of unemployment and 75% of your previous salary after eight paid weeks of unemployment.”
Greene said the projected lower occupancy will allow businesses to prepare for the “new normal” in the hospitality industry with increased cleaning measures and other guidance to protect the safety of guests and employees.
Reporter Tyler Fleming contributed to this report.
This story was originally published May 1, 2020 at 11:17 AM.
