Katie Dopita is losing her job.
She has heard people say job pickings are slim, and that has her worried.
“I don’t know. I figure I’ll be OK. I’m starting to be little nervous now; after tomorrow, I won’t have a job,” the University of Utah senior said Thursday.
Dopita works at the Starwood Hotels and Resorts reservations call center located in Research Park.
After Friday, the center will close its doors permanently, putting approximately 225 full time and 150 part-time employees out of work. More than half of Dopita’s co workers are students, she said..
“Unfortunately, the events of Sept. 11 hit us pretty hard in call volume. It is rebounding right now, but it is still down,” said Nadeen Ayala, Starwood spokeswoman.
Starwood is one of the world’s largest hotel and leisure companies, according to its Web site. Its brand names include the Sheraton and Westin hotels.
Starwood’s third-quarter revenues sank 12 percent compared to last year’s?part of an industry-wide decline.
The company deliberately seeks students because its flexible hours are often a nice fit to students’ schedules, according to Ayala.
Dopita has been working at the call center for about three and a half years. She clocked in enough to surpass the 30 hour threshold considered full time and received health insurance, tuition re imbursement, even travel benefits.
She has visited Los Angeles five times this year.
“I graduate in May and move in August, so I was going to be leaving anyway. I was kind of counting on this job until I left,” Dopita said. “I live with my twin sister, and I told her I could be the housewife and she could bring home the paycheck.”
Other Starwood call centers will take on the extra call volume after Friday, Ayala said. The decision to close the Research Park location stemmed from the company’s declining business, she said. It had nothing to do with Utah’s travel and tourism industry, which is faring somewhat better than other parts of the nation.
“Salt Lake City has been relatively less affected than many other destinations,” said John Kemp, research coordinator for the Utah Travel Council. He said the state is just getting hard statistics and much of the evidence is still anecdotal.
Immediately following the Sept. 11 attacks there was a period of shock when people didn’t travel at all. Over the next couple of weeks or so travel began to rebound.
But the change is still being fine tuned, Kemp said. Booking and travel reservations throughout the country may plateau or continue their gradual increase.
Utah’s tourism industry is more dependent on drivers than are many other destinations in the United States. As a result, flight cutbacks and empty seats have not hurt the state as much as others, Kemp said.
However, international travel to the state’s southern national parks has taken a hit. Bookings for the coming ski season are also low.
A decline in business travel had already begun to leave more of Utah’s hotel rooms empty even before Sept. 11, according to Kemp.
“[The attacks] certainly caused that to decline even further,” he said.
Declining hotel occupancies ultimately creates situations like Starwood’s, he said.
The Winter Olympics will probably provide an important stimulus to the weakened industry.
Unlike Starwood, most employers in the area are not letting employees go, but keeping them in preparation for the Olympics.