NYC still struggling with lifeguard shortage as beach season approaches
April 26, 2023, 5:11 p.m.
The city cut a deal earlier this week to give lifeguards a big pay raise, but it may not be enough to keep the beaches and pools fully staffed.
New York City’s beach season kicks off next month — but the top parks officials said on Wednesday the department is still struggling to find enough lifeguards for the second year in a row.
Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue said during a City Council hearing that the department is on pace to hire about 900 seasonal lifeguards for the upcoming outdoor swimming season, which starts when the city’s beaches open on Memorial Day weekend. Outdoor public swimming pools open in late June.
Donoghue said that’s about the same number of lifeguards the parks department employed last summer, when a staffing shortage limited swimming hours at some pools and beaches.
The number is still well short of the 1,400 lifeguards that Donoghue said she would like to employ. If the city can’t employ at least 900 lifeguards, she said cuts to programming at the city’s pools could be necessary.
“The reality is that the entire nation is still facing a very challenging environment for lifeguard hiring,” Donoghue said. “Despite these challenges, keeping our beachgoers safe will continue to be our top priority.”
Having a reduced number of lifeguards like last summer means the possibility of cutting swim programs like senior swim, water aerobics and lap swim hours, Donoghue said.
“We do that to try and place priority on just the greatest number of individual citizens, having as much of the public be able to access our pools and beaches as possible,” Donoghue said.
As part of the effort to recruit more lifeguards, the city reached a deal with DC 37 on Tuesday to raise seasonal pay rates for new and second-year lifeguards from $16.10 to $21.26 an hour, as well as a $1,000 bonus for working through the summer. In an effort to expand the ranks, the department is also offering a specific lifeguard certification for staff to work at playground minipools.
The ongoing staffing shortage has persisted since last year, when the city offered a temporary 22% pay bump to $19.46 an hour to lure more candidates. The parks department has also reformed the lifeguard test, which a city watchdog has called “unfair" and opaque. The city now uses a new 45-second cutoff on the test, up from the previous requirement of 35 seconds. Applicants also now receive the timed results of their tests, in hopes that those who miss the cutoff time will work on improving their speed for future seasons.
City Councilmember Shekar Krishnan said he’s worried the staffing shortage trend will continue without more effort to teach more New Yorkers to swim and become future lifeguards.
“If it happened last year and it’s happening this year, this is a larger systemic problem with no real end in sight,” Krishnan said at the hearing.
New lifeguard recruitment ended in March, but anyone who worked as a qualified city lifeguard last summer can still sign up for recertification to work this year.
"We are very proud that New York City was one of the only major U.S. cities to keep all our public pools and beaches open for free public use in 2022, and we expect the same result this summer," a Parks Department spokesperson said in a statement.
This story was updated with a comment from the Parks Department.