It’s hot. Is your community pool open?

Summer is off to a sweltering start, sending families and individuals across the U.S. to their community pools and to the shores to cool off and escape the heat. But in many places across the country, some pools and beaches remain closed due to an ongoing shortage of lifeguards.

For example, New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared last week that city pools were open for the summer, although because of lifeguard shortages some still faced partial closures or would be open for shorter hours.

Nationwide, communities are exploring different ways to keep pools and beaches open ahead of another anticipated record hot summer, particularly how pay increases can help ensure they have the lifeguard workforce necessary to avoid closing facilities. 

It's not just rising heat that’s left state and local governments parched for more lifeguards on duty. It’s also the climbing drowning rates, which have increased by 28% among children aged 1 to 4 and by 19% among adults 65 to 74 years old since 2019, according to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Some health experts attribute the grim findings to the pandemic, which forced pools and beaches to close down as governments issued quarantine and social distancing regulations. The closures have had a “reverberating effect,” said Tom Gill, vice president of the U.S. Lifesaving Association, or USLA, a group of beach and open water lifeguards, causing a “delay in [lifeguard] training and swim lessons.”

Now, four years after the pandemic, the nation is generally “back to a full-employment economy” where lifeguard hiring agencies have to compete financially with other job opportunities like food service or retail, he said, which are other sectors that rely heavily on high school and college individuals. 

That’s where agencies in charge of hiring and retaining lifeguards for public pools and beaches could find themselves struggling to fill empty lifeguard stands. The American Lifeguard Association estimates factors like pay and increasing living costs contributed to the closing or reduced operating hours of more than 300,000 pools last year, with more reductions expected in 2024. 

Low wages for such a high stakes job as lifeguarding—which requires rigorous safety and rescue training and certifications—are a surefire way for state and local governments to deter prospective employees, said Shawn DeRosa, director of the Bureau of Pool and Waterfront Safety at the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation.

“Places that are offering a lower wage are experiencing a higher need for lifeguards than those that are offering a higher rate. That certainly has been the case for Massachusetts,” he said. 

Last year, for instance, the department started offering an hourly rate for lifeguards and pool staff of $22 and up to $27. The state’s minimum wage is $15 an hour. 

The money doesn’t stop flowing there. A $500 sign-on bonus awaited individuals who completed a lifeguard application by May 1, and a $250 bonus was awarded to those who applied before June 1 this year. Lifeguards who work through August 18 are eligible for an extra $250 or an extra $500 for staying through Labor Day. 

“I think because we were aggressive in addressing the [lifeguard shortage] early coming out of COVID-19, we haven’t experienced a lifeguard shortage,” DeRosa said. “To the contrary, we’ve hired more lifeguards than we’ve ever hired before … through compensation, bonuses and incentives.” 

The department is at about 96% staffing level, he said, which means there’s only a shortage of about 30 lifeguards across its nearly 60 water facilities. “That means some are fully staffed, and some might be down one position. But that one position is inconsequential to operations.” 

The financial incentives don’t just benefit the nearly 800 pool and waterfront employees, DeRosa added. When individuals apply earlier in the year, “it allows us to process that paperwork, do the background checks [and] the criminal offender checks early enough so that there’s no rush at the end of the preseason to get [lifeguards] into the stands.” 

Massachusetts cities are following the state agency’s lead. Worcester and Boston, for instance, have increased lifeguard hourly rates to more than $20. New York City similarly offers higher wages and retention bonuses. 

In Ohio, Cincinnati will be opening all of its 24 pools for the first time since the pandemic started, in part due to increased wages. The city’s Recreation Commission boosted pay from $12.95 to $16 this year and offered $500 stipends for applicants who completed their training early. 

And in Vermont, the Barre City Municipal Swimming Pool is offering to cover the $350 lifeguard certification class for new hires and increased hourly rates from $15 to $17. 

Officials can attract lifeguards in other ways too, such as providing housing assistance for workers where living costs tend to be higher, Gill of USLA said. 

These employees do more than sit on stands to catch a tan, he said, as they provide critical public safety nets in communities where taking a dip in the pool or the beach is a favored summer pastime, he said. 

There are many other job opportunities out there besides lifeguarding, Gill said, and that requires “a commitment by municipalities, managers and leadership of lifeguard services to getting a good [hiring] result each summer.”