Memorial Day weekend marks the official start of the region’s high season — our busy time. All signs point to a summer of the usual, if not larger, flocks of tourists. But seasonal worker numbers are still skeletal.

It shouldn’t come as a complete surprise, nor is it completely the fault of COVID-19. While disruptive, the pandemic threw wood on a beach bonfire already crackling — one that won’t be doused anytime soon.

According to AXIOS, our last decade favored employers, the next few won’t. A recent Congressional Budget Office forecast showed the size of the U.S. labor force will only grow by 0.2 percent a year from 2024 to 2031.

The skews dramatically from the 2010s, when baby boomers were joined by millennials in the workforce. Now the boomers are retiring, and the much-smaller Gen Z won’t be able to keep pace.

“This is a tough picture, looking forward,” said Ron Hetrick, a senior labor economist quoted in a recent story for the Society for Human Resource Management. “People who think that once the pandemic subsides things will get better forget that in February 2020 we had the lowest unemployment rate in history.”

Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the youngest boomers will reach traditional retirement age by 2030, SHRM reports, and because of the smaller population available to work, Hetrick says, “We will have to get better at utilizing the labor we have.”

Some local businesses and organizations are doing that. They are creatively working with their employees on scheduling, wages, benefits and managing burnout. Adaptations include providing affordable housing so employees can keep more of their paychecks; or embracing hybrid or remote work, a relief valve for workers who care for children and family members.

They are making life better for their employees, and are thus getting by in this demographic shift.

Getting creative isn’t what organizations do anymore when they have the luxury of time. It’s a crucial component to survival.

We will need to train our visitors, and ourselves, at being more reliant and accommodating in this new era. Perhaps it’s not ideal for us as patrons to miss out on our ice cream cones. But when you consider the alternative is to shut up shop, it doesn’t seem so bad.

— Traverse City Record-Eagle