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https://www.wsj.com/articles/hospitality-workers-are-pushed-into-new-careers-as-pandemic-begins-second-year-11613999342

MANAGEMENT & CAREERS

Four Million Hotel, Restaurant Workers Have Lost Jobs.

Here’s How They’re Reinventing Themselves.
Faced with continuing furloughs and economic lockdowns, workers in the hospitality industry are
pushed into new careers as the pandemic persists

Jaclyn Garcia, third from left with prospective clients when she was a national sales manager, now
works at a construction-estimate software company.
PHOTO: JAMIE LAMORANDIER

By Kathryn Dill
Updated Feb. 22, 2021 11 27 am ET

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6 minutes

The head waiter has become a grocery manager. The conference coordinator works at a
software company. And the hotel-sales boss is now in marketing.

Workers at America’s hotels, restaurants, bars and convention centers have been among
the hardest hit during the Covid-19 pandemic. Lockdowns and the lack of travel have
caused many gathering places to close or reduce their staff. Since February 2020, the
leisure-and-hospitality sector has shed nearly four million people, or roughly a quarter of
its workforce. As of January 2021, 15.9% of the industry’s workers remained unemployed;
more than any other industry, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As a result, millions of hospitality workers—a group that includes everyone from front-
desk clerks to travel managers—are trying to launch new careers. Some have transitioned
to roles that tap skills honed over years of public-facing work in high-pressure
environments. Others have seized the moment to remake themselves for different
occupations. Many remain conflicted about leaving an industry they say continually
provides new experiences and engenders lasting relationships.

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A year ago, Ellen White was head trainer at Public Kitchen on Manhattan’s Lower East
Side. There, she schooled the restaurant’s workers on the finer points of high-end service.

Ms. White supported herself working in restaurants for nearly two decades while acting,
until she was furloughed from her restaurant job when the pandemic took hold last
spring. Now, she applies that attention to detail to her job as a customer-service
representative for a company that processes at-home Covid-19 tests.

“It’s easy for me to quell someone’s nerves or to calm someone down,” says Ms. White, 36
years old. “I’m so used to being face to face with an angry person about cold salmon.”
‘It’s easy for me to quell someone’s nerves or to calm someone down,’ says Ellen White, third from
the right in the middle row with Public Kitchen sta before she was furloughed.
PHOTO: AYAKA GUIDO

Others have used the opportunity to develop a new skill set. Jaclyn Garcia, 32, struggled
to find work after losing her job as a national sales manager at Loews Hotels & Co. “It was
seven months of just feeling like you’re not good enough, after being at the top of your
company and your career,” Ms. Garcia says.

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She eventually turned to Aspireship, a tuition-free online software-as-a-service, or SaaS,

sales-training program that she found through LinkedIn. In November, after completing
Aspireship’s training course, she landed a job as an account manager at ProEst, a
construction-estimate software company.

Corey Kossack, Aspireship founder and chief executive, launched the program after years
of watching workers struggle to pivot into SaaS sales because they didn’t have industry
skills or certifications. The company partners with employers, earning a fee when
companies hire Aspireship grads.

“When the pandemic hit, it created these specific pockets of people who were more
motivated than ever to make these moves,” said Mr. Kossack, a veteran of the software
industry. “The single greatest one has been people coming from hospitality.”
Rachael Ballas had been considering a move to another industry when she was laid o .
PHOTO: KIMPTON HOTELS

Rachael Ballas, 32, had worked her way up from banquet manager of a small resort in
Kentucky to group sales manager at Kimpton Hotels in Chicago, but says she already had
been considering a move to another industry when she was laid off in March.

“I wasn’t feeling very challenged anymore,” says Ms. Ballas, who joined ActivePipe, an
email marketing platform for real-estate professionals, as an account manager in
December. As part of the team at a startup, Ms. Ballas says she finds herself pursuing
clients; previously she fielded more inbound interest. “It’s given me more of a sense of
fulfillment and meaning again.”

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Major employers have factored the industry exodus into their own hiring. Last spring,
before announcing a plan to hire an additional 150,000 store associates across the U.S.,
Walmart Inc. representatives reached out to the National Restaurant Association and the
American Hotel & Lodging Foundation to alert both organizations to the company’s desire
to hire furloughed hospitality workers.

Ginger Fields, head of talent at Farmers Insurance, said she noticed several years ago that
the company was getting more applicants from the hospitality industry and that many
became successful in direct-sales positions and customer-service roles. Of 100 workers
hired between late 2020 and early 2021 for customer-service roles, the company said
more than a third have hospitality- or service-industry backgrounds.

“Challenging situations, thinking on their feet, problem-solving, being resilient, moving

on to the next customer interaction with a smiling face-we find it translates really well,”
Ms. Fields said.
Brianne Mouton says leaving the hospitality industry was like ‘losing a limb.’
PHOTO: BRITTANY JEAN PHOTOGRAPHY

Even those workers who have successfully switched industries say hospitality’s
devastation has taken a lasting toll. Brianne Mouton, 40, was a national sales manager for
the San Diego Tourism Authority when the pandemic began. She started as an account
executive at employee engagement and pulse-survey software company TINYpulse in
January. Still, she describes leaving the hospitality industry as like “losing a limb.”

“This was my career, what I loved to do, what I excelled at, worked hard at. I lost my
community,” Ms. Mouton said.

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Paul Gernhauser was the lead server at Josephine Estelle at the Ace Hotel in New Orleans
when the pandemic started. At the end of March, he was hired as a stocker at a local
grocery store, a job he thought would tide him over until the restaurant reopened.

But as weeks stretched into months, he asked to stay on full time and has since become
the store’s grocery manager—hiring and training new employees, scheduling staff and
managing orders of certain products. Mr. Gernhauser, 44, says his new career is less
stressful than serving, but he did take a pay cut.

He is on a first-name basis with many of the store’s regular customers, some of whom
remember him from his previous job. “They’re like, ‘Didn’t you work at that restaurant?’
I’m like ‘Yes, I did.’”

Write to Kathryn Dill at Kathryn.Dill@wsj.com

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Appeared in the February 23, 2021, print edition as 'Workers Abandon Careers in Hospitality.'
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