Vermont ski areas depend on foreign employees who spend the winter months working as lift attendants, ski instructors and cooks. Though the hiring process is expensive and time-consuming, the resorts need these employees because there aren’t enough local workers.
“They also enrich our workplace and community by fostering cultural exchange — benefiting not only the participants but our local team members as well,” said Sam McDowell, the HR coordinator at Smugglers’ Notch Resort in Jeffersonville.
But the government shutdown and new policies imposed by the Trump administration are making the process take even longer — and introducing added stress. At Smuggs, which hires 80 to 90 people using J-1 and H-2B visas each winter, McDowell is uncertain he’ll be able to fill all the open positions for which the resort uses foreign labor. The workers account for about 10 percent of all winter staff.
Part of the problem is that both the U.S. Department of Labor and State Department have been operating on reduced schedules, if at all, during the federal government shutdown.
Another hurdle: Applicants must provide their social media handles during interviews with American officials so the Trump administration can review their posts. As a result, McDowell said some applicants for jobs at Smuggs last summer had been rejected.
“We provide information about the social media policy and making sure that you’re not posting or making silly memes that somebody screening you might not think are funny,” McDowell said. “And making sure all of your documents are together and ready to go.”
McDowell is in a bind. He must decide whether to try to hire too many foreign workers, reasoning that some won’t be able to come, or to hire just enough and hope they’re all approved.
A dozen or so local ski areas are hiring from overseas this winter for a statewide total of about 1,400 workers, according to Molly Mahar, president of Ski Vermont, a nonprofit trade association. “Overall, most areas seem confident that they will get the number of international staff they want to hire, or close to it,” she wrote in an email.
The original print version of this article was headlined “You’re Hired”
This article appears in The Winter Preview Issue 2025.
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