Myrtle Beach needs J-1 workers for the 2024 summer season. How many are there now?
During the summer months, residents and frequent visitors to the Myrtle Beach area often see a similar scene: a young adult riding a bicycle around downtown.
While not an uncommon activity, there’s a reason you might see so many bicyclists during the 2024 summer.
Those bicyclists might be international students in Myrtle Beach, United States, as part of the J-1 Visa program. A frequent mode of transportation for J-1 Visa holders, bicycles are raffled off and rented to J-1ers by local groups that provide support, the program is a federal government initiative that allows international students to visit America to continue their studies or work.
Most J-1 students coming to Myrtle Beach do so for summer jobs, and they typically work as lifeguards at hotels or other seasonal postings.
Local businesses need J-1 students to help run their businesses during the summer months, as local officials see their presence as critical to the survival of the Myrtle Beach area’s summer economy. The question becomes, if they’re so important, how many J-1 students are there?
Christy Morris is the outreach pastor at Midtown Vineyard Church in downtown Myrtle Beach. The church provides services and orientations to incoming J-1 students to help ease their stay along the Grand Strand, including the All Nations Cafe, a free, safe space for J-1ers to congregate.
Morris estimated that more than 1,500 J-1 students work in the Grand Strand. Indeed, the federal government also provides data on the number of workers in previous years.
The U.S. Department of State tracks the number of J-1 students visiting each state of the union annually, including how many J-1 students work in each Zip Code.
Based on The U.S. Department of State’s data, in 2023, more than 4,100 resided in the Palmetto State. Myrtle Beach and Horry County represented a large portion of that 4,100. In 2023, less than 2,000 J-1 students worked in Horry County, according to the U.S. Department of State’s database, almost 50 percent of all J-1 students in South Carolina in 2023.
According to the data, Myrtle Beach had less than 81 percent of the J-1 students who worked in Horry County in 2023. While almost 2,000 students might seem like a lot, Horry County’s actually seen a drop in the number of J-1ers coming to the Grand Strand compared to previous years.
Morris said as many as 3,000 students came to the Myrtle Beach area before the Pandemic occurred, which reduced the number of workers coming in from abroad to around 1,500. While Morris added that the number of J-1 workers coming to Myrtle Beach has risen once more, she said that the Grand Strand has yet to reach pre-COVID levels, as the area doesn’t have enough housing for all students.
“We can only house so many right now. We’ve kind of hit a cap,” Morris said. “We’re having more students come back, but we have hit a cap of 1,500. That’s about all the housing that is available.”
Myrtle Beach businesses are looking to add more housing to, in part, address this problem. Scheduled to open in 2025, local builders plan to open a new dormitory-esque facility for J-1 students living in Myrtle Beach— although the project is controversial with residents in the neighborhood where it will be. Mark Lazarus, president of Lazarus Group Entertainment, is involved with the project and said that the facility will house as many as 1,000 J-1 students.
This story was originally published June 4, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
