Child care capacity was reduced during pandemic. | Pixabay
Child care capacity was reduced during pandemic. | Pixabay
Childcare could be one reason for staffing challenges in Illinois’ hospitality industry, State Senator Terri Bryant (R-Murphysboro) during a Senate Tourism and Hospitality Committee hearing at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville.
She pointed to hotels in Mount Vernon that had to temporarily shut down a floor or two, or will not allow check-in earlier than 9 p.m., because of lack of staff to clean the rooms; and to restaurants closing early due to staff shortage.
“We had reduced capacity for a child care because of COVID and I'm hoping as we go into Phase 5, the governor will open that capacity back up,” Bryant said. I haven't heard that it's been opened up to 100% yet. ... I would like to see us advocating more for some of the pandemic dollars to be used not to keep people at home but to allow them to go back to work so the dollars are used for childcare. Would that help you with some of your employment issues? Do you think? Is childcare a problem?”
Illinois State Sen. Terri Bryant pointed to hotels in Mount Vernon that had to temporarily shut down a floor or two, or will not allow check-in earlier than 9 p.m., because of lack of staff to clean the rooms.
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She asked Cory Jobe, president and CEO of Great Rivers & Routes Tourism Bureau, if this is the case during the June hearing.
“Different people have different issues and I think that's part of the problem,” Jobe told Bryant. “I think what also will help is proper job training. I think if we had some of that training where you could have a childcare environment as well and have these people coming to these critically important jobs ... that would help. That's what we look at.”
“Part of the problem as Senator [Sara] Feigenholtz mentioned is young people not wanting to go to work because they are afraid about whether or not someone has been vaccinated, but the other seems to me to be whether or not you can find childcare. Whether it is two-parents family where both parents work or single-parent family and they have no one else to watch the kids,” Bryant said.
The former Director of the Illinois Office of Tourism said that the tourism industry in southern Illinois was flourishing pre-pandemic but that COVID-19 has drastically changed the business — “recovery has been uncertain and slow at times,” Jobe told Capitol News Illinois.
Jobe was named president and CEO of Great Rivers & Routes Tourism Bureau last November.
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