Wages, perks rise as Corridor cities hire summer lifeguards

An uphill battle to hire enough lifeguards in a severe labor shortage has paid off for Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, which say they have enough staff to open their municipal pools this summer.

Iowa City has opened all three of its city pools. Cedar Rapids will open four of its five pools by this weekend — the exception is Noelridge Aquatic Center, not expected to open until mid-June or later due to mechanical issues with its heating system.

Like other cities trying to hire summer recreational staff, both communities raised wages for lifeguards to $15 an hour. Most of the jobs are filled with high school or college students.

Iowa City Director of Parks and Recreation Juli Seydell Johnson said while the pools are operating as normal, the city still is hiring more lifeguards to work this summer.

“We have enough staff but not any extra at this point,” Johnson said. “And we are constantly looking at how our pools are being used to make sure that we are using staff as efficiently as possible.”

While the lifeguard pay increase helped recruit staff in the beginning, Johnson said she thinks the city still is seeing a shortage of applicants because not every kid learns how to swim anymore — which is a requirement for lifeguards.

“That’s one of our big visions of our department is to push for swimming lessons,” Johnson said. “We have lots of scholarships available. … We’re trying to make it so that we have a pool of lifeguards well into the future because we have a pool of people that can pass the swimming test to become a lifeguard.”

Angie Cole, recreation superintendent with the Cedar Rapids Parks and Recreation Department, said filling positions was a struggle even before COVID-19 struck. She said the decision to increase pay was to keep Cedar Rapids competitive with others.

“We've seen a lot of other communities going toward the $15 an hour for lifeguards, and this is just a way to make us closer to that range and make it so we can hire a little bit easier and work with applications that we have coming in,” Cole said.

Lifeguards still must have the same qualifications and responsibilities, Cole said. Applicants must be at least 15 years old and don’t have to be certified when they apply but must if they are hired. Cole said applicants pay for the certification training, but would receive a reimbursement for 80 percent of the cost if they work at the pool for the full season.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the youth labor force looking for work grows between April and July. The number of employed youths nationwide increased by 11.8 percent between those months in 2021. By July 2021, some 20.3 million 16- to 24-year-olds were employed. But despite that increase in 2021, the July 2021 youth labor force still was 1.3 percentage points less than its 2019 level.

Cedar Rapids’ Cole said that the goal was to hire enough staff to reopen all five of the city’s pools.

“I think, on our end, what we need to focus on is, you know, how we can how we can recruit and how we can get enough staff to run all of our programs,“ Cole said. ”And so for us, that means, you know, attending a lot of job fairs or getting out to the schools and talking to students about working for us.“

Last summer, Cedar Rapids only had three pools open due to staffing shortages. This year, the city, with about 100 lifeguards on staff, announced that four of its pools will be open as of Saturday.

The Cherry Hill Aquatic Center and Bever, Ellis and Jones pools will open for lap swims and open swims. A heater part needed to fix the temperature of Noelridge Aquatic Center is not expected to be available until at least the middle of the month.

Iowa City opened all its three pools on Memorial Day — City Park Pool, Mercer Park Aquatic Center Pool and the Robert A. Lee Community Recreation Center Pool.

Schedules for Iowa City and Cedar Rapids pools, as well as the various costs to the public, are on the cities’ websites at icgov.org/pools and cedar-rapids.org.

While Cedar Rapids and Iowa City decided to increase lifeguard wages to $15 an hour, North Liberty is taking a slower approach, increasing them in steps from $13 to $15 an hour by June 2023.

Aquatics Coordinator Ben Bliven said the wage for lifeguards increased to $14 an hour this month, and then rises to $15 an hour in June 2023. This year, Bliven said, the city offered incentives for current staff to recruit friends.

“We set a little incentive where if they refer a friend to work here, and then they get a special hoodie, and that was definitely a big incentive for them,“ Bliven said. ”But I think even without the hoodie, just, you know, working with your friends, you know, pool environment where it's a fun summer job. It's definitely great working with your friends, and I think that's a big encouragement there.“

With indoor and outdoor pools in Pacha Aquatic Center, Bliven feels lucky the center is able to open without a staffing shortage.

“We've just been very lucky our staff has done a really good job at encouraging, you know, others to work here and, you know, really excited going to the sun,” Bliven said. “I think we're going to have a great staff and it's going to be a great summer.”