Where have all the lifeguards gone?

YOUNGSTOWN — Though Youngstown has already seen sweltering summer days, the city's recently repaired North Side pool remains closed.

And it will stay that way, Youngstown Parks and Recreation Director Dawn Turnage said, until she can properly staff lifeguards.

This lifeguard shortage is not just a Valley phenomenon. Throughout the country, a primary harbinger of summer is a pool teeming with people taking a refreshing dip on a sweltering day.

Yet, pools from Virginia Beach to Youngstown remain closed.

Why?

There’s no shortage of explanations for the lack of teenagers working at pools this year.

Some teens and parents are concerned about lifeguarding during a pandemic, Turnage said.

"What if I have to save somebody's life and they have COVID?" Turnage asked, explaining teens' concerns.

Also, for a pool in a majority Black city, race factors in, too.

"In our urban community, our kids are not even used to being taught how to swim," she said.

While the Youngstown YMCA has enough lifeguards to staff its facilities this summer, getting there wasn't easy, said Youngstown YMCA Aquatics Director Chris Hughes Chris Hughes.

“Coming off of COVID with everything opening up kind of abruptly, I think that caused a lot of issues this year with a lot of places. June 2 was snap your fingers and everything opens, and we don’t have enough people," Hughes said.

Pool staffing nationwide has also been affected by former President Trump's suspension of new J-1 visa applications, said Lindsay Mondick, a water safety specialist for YMCA of the USA.

“Typically we have a lot of overseas staff that come to patrol our beaches and our water parks in the summer, and because of the pandemic, those [personnel] are not available to come over on their visas,” Mondick said.

The economics of lifeguarding

Becoming a lifeguard isn’t cheap. To get certified, teens must take a time-intensive course.

Local teens can get certified to be lifeguards at the YMCA for $200 or at the Jewish Community Center. At the JCC, certification costs $187 for members and $250 for nonmembers.

At the JCC, certification consists of two full weekend days and online classes said Aquatic Director Tara Bishop.

And, certification lasts only two years; getting recertified costs between $75 and $100 at the JCC.

During the pandemic summer, pools lost out on a crop of potential lifeguards last summer due to the pause on certifications and re-certifications.

To attract lifeguards, pools have started reimbursing lifeguards for the cost of certification.

In addition to the potential upfront costs, pay is rarely much higher than minimum wage.

When teens can make $14 an hour working at Sheetz, lifeguarding is “not appealing, because it’s a lower-wage paying job for a lot of responsibility,” Hughes said.

The YMCA recently increase its lifeguard pay to $10 an hour to compete with other workplaces and retain their roster.

“That’s huge for us,” Hughes said.

City lifeguards make $10.45 an hour. Turnage said the city will pay for certifications and ask that lifeguards agree to work for two summers.

Long term trends

While the pandemic has exacerbated the shortage of lifeguards, the issue is years in the making, said Hughes.

“I think parents are putting such a high focus on school. They don’t want their kids to work or they don’t have to work. They don’t need extra money,” Hughes said.

In many cases, teens, instead, get summer internships, she added.

If staffing pools isn't possible, operating hours will suffer, said Hughes who threw Youngstown a literal life preserver this week and spoke with Turnage about sharing lifeguards.

In areas with open water, the lack of supervised pools could pose even more grave risks, Hughes warned.

"If pools don't open because they don't have lifeguards, people will go to unguarded areas, whether that be hotels or apartments ... where there are no lifeguards. So, I think there is a risk of drowning incidents to increase because people are swimming at unguarded places," she said.

This story was originally published June 30, 2021 at 3:52 AM with the headline "Where have all the lifeguards gone?."