STURGEON BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Local businesses in Door County are preparing for another busy summer.
Hiring was a bit of a struggle last year, but the county says it’s gotten better.
The streets of Sturgeon Bay are already busy ahead of Memorial Day weekend.
“Numbers that we’re seeing initially and advanced reservations are looking very strong,” Destination Door County Chief Communications Officer Jon Jarosh said.
Jarosh says their tourism numbers last year exceeded pre-pandemic levels, and they expect that to continue.
Direct visitor spending in Door County totaled 304.2 million in 2020.
Over at Sonny’s Pizzeria, managers say they’re staffed to handle the volume.
“Been a work in progress over the last month, the applications have been coming in, we have a lot of locals, a lot of returning college students, we do have four J-1 visas so that’s going to be a tremendous help,” Sony’s Pizzeria general manager Melissa Martinez said.
Jarosh says the J-1 program is also looking better this year.
J-1 allows international students to take part in work-related exchange programs.
“Certainly a lot more kids coming to the United States this year than we had last year, including in Door County. It’s looking like we’re not going to be quite at 2019 levels yet but a lot better and I think that will help with some of those workforce issues that we’ve got, or that we had in particular last year.”
For others, hiring is still an obstacle.
Some businesses, like the Door County Confectionary, say it might be nice to have a few extra staff members going into the busy season. Regardless, they say they’ll make it work.
“With the current staff that we have we try to do our best to run things as smooth as we can and to meet what the customers want,” Door County Confectionary manager Kevin Marquiz said.
Marquiz says the confectionary, and other businesses are heavily dependent on tourism dollars.
“And the people to come up and spend their money up here to keep all the businesses and everybody else going and to keep them around every year,” Marquiz said.
Destination Door County says it’s still looking to fill some seasonal positions.
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