by Doug Radunich

STAFF WRITER

Despite low statewide unemployment and fears of a national recession, local businesses and government officials report robust summer hiring with few problems finding seasonal employees.

Deseret Peak Complex Director Mark McKendrick said 39 part-time employees were hired two weeks ago for the park's aquatic center, which opened May 24. He said the number of employees hired was the same as last year, and that most of the new hires were college students on break.

"Several of our hires were return employees from previous summers, and we might be hiring a couple more," McKendrick said. "Most of them were brought on as lifeguards. These summer employees will stay with us until Labor Day, which is when pretty much all of our departments wind down."

McKendrick said Deseret Peak's other departments, such as concessions and ground maintenance, have also been hiring seasonal employees.

"Right now we have a total of 89 summer employees, and we'll see how popular our events are to decide if we will need even more," he said. "We expect another busy year this year. In the past, when we've had to run a major event like the Tooele County Fair, we've had to pull in current employees from other departments to come help. We're lucky that we had an ample amount of people apply for departments throughout the whole park, and our pay rates went up just a little because of the cost-of-living increase."

Miller Motorsports Park has also been hiring more employees for the summer season. Angelina Kendzior, director of marketing and communications for MMP, said the park's summer season usually runs from May all the way to October, and is filled with major racing events throughout that time.

"Miller Motorsports is still hiring summer help, and we're looking for seasonal part-time workers in areas such as security, box-office ticketing and concessions," she said. "We have received quite a few applicants who want to work here for the summer, with most of them being from Salt Lake. We will need all the extra help we can get for major events like the Hannspree Superbike World Championship or Sunchaser 1000, and it can sometimes take up to 400 people to put on an event like that. Fortunately, we are able to rely heavily on many volunteers and part-time employees for help with the major events."

Kendzior said MMP's hiring level and employee base for the summer season has been about the same as last year.

"We had a lot of people seeking jobs with us this year, but some had a problem with the fact that it's only seasonal work from about May to October," she said. "The fact that we do not staff people year-round has been our only real problem when it comes to hiring."

Dairy Delight manager Shannon Lopez said the Tooele restaurant has so far been a popular summer job spot for teenagers.

"We actually hired quite a few employees over the past couple of weeks, and we're still looking for more part-time employees," Lopez said. "We usually sell a lot of ice cream during the summer, especially at night, so we can use more help. We've had quite a few high school kids come in and express interest in working here."

Traci Padgett, owner of Cold Stone Creamery in Tooele, said her ice cream shop is also bolstering its ranks for summer, which is its busiest season.

"We just started our summer hiring process a month ago and hired four kids, and this week we hired six kids," he said. "Probably in another three or four weeks we'll hire five more kids, and we'll hire more throughout the rest of the summer. This will be our first summer [in Tooele] so we're not quite sure what to expect, but we do know that summers are when we'll need the most employees."

Big-box stores in town are also preparing for a heavy flow of customers this summer. Steve Widerburg, store supervisor for Home Depot, said that over the past month his store hired 24 part-time employees, several of whom were high school and college students, in order to be prepared for the busy summer season.

"We did flex up for this summer and hire about two dozen new part-time employees, who will probably work 25 to 30 hours a week for us, over the past 30 days," he said. "We need to be prepared with more employees, because during the summer we get more business and need to accommodate more customers. Our summer hiring level has been about the same as last year."

Widerburg said job applicants haven't slowed at Home Depot, and that fears of a recession have not affected the store's summer hiring.

"We actually received plenty of applications from all types of people 18-and-over who wanted to work here for the summer, so there are definitely enough people who want or need a job out here," he said. "A lot of them were high school and college students who needed something for the summer before they went back to school. However, I expect that out of the 24 part-time employees hired, two or three of them will want to go on to full-time status after the summer's over."

The state's unemployment rate was running at 3.1 percent in April -- still one of the lowest rates in the nation.

Cold Stone's Padgett sums up the surprise many employers feel at being able to easily fill seasonal positions.

"Unlike other places, our problem has been that there have been too many people applying to work here," she said. "We've had a real hard time trying to narrow it all down and pick who to hire based on all the applications we receive."

dougrad@tooeletranscript.com