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Melissa Harris-Perry: Welcome back to The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. What's your dream vacation? Would you fly first-class to Tokyo, stay in a luxury villa in Istanbul with a private pool? Maybe you find yourself on the beach, getting hot-stone massages and sipping piña coladas. Sound expensive? Well, some workers have found an unexpected way to get that ideal vacation for a fraction of the cost.
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Maria Boyd Scott: My name is Maria Boyd Scott.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Maria turned 60 last month. To celebrate, she and her wife, Joey, took the trip of a lifetime.
Maria Boyd Scott: I flew first-class from San Francisco to Amsterdam and stayed two days in Amsterdam, then flew to Paris and stayed three nights in Versailles, and it was amazing.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Now, the Boyd Scotts aren't multimillionaires, but Maria and her wife have jobs with unusual benefits. Joey works at the front desk at a Hilton Hotel, and Maria?
Maria Boyd Scott: I'm a part-time Ramp Agent for United Airlines in Ontario, California.
Melissa Harris-Perry: They're part of an increasing trend of folks over 50 joining the workforce of airlines and hotels, specifically for the perks.
Maria Boyd Scott: Free flights virtually anywhere, that United flies and partner agreements with other airlines as well, and there's flexibility if I get somewhere and I want to stay there, I can stay there as long as I'd like and then leave when I'm ready and come home when I'm ready. Also, my family can fly as well.
Melissa Harris-Perry: According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, since February of this year, the leisure and hospitality industry has had the highest rate of job openings out of all the industries tracked by the BLS. Many businesses are turning to older adults to fill these shifts, and they're sweetening the deal with better travel benefits.
Maria Boyd Scott: We're so short-handed that anybody who wants a job in the airline or hotel industry can get one tomorrow.
Melissa Harris-Perry: When Maria thought about her retirement years in the past, she hoped they would include a whole lot of beach time and relaxation.
Maria Boyd Scott: What I do now, absolutely exceeds that expectation for the amount of time I work, and the amount of benefits we get from our jobs to travel, I never could have imagined a life as awesome as this.
Melissa Harris-Perry: For her, it's worth the 15 hours a week she spends loading luggage in and out of airplanes.
Maria Boyd Scott: I would encourage everyone to give it a chance, see the world, stay in places you never thought you could stay in, and enjoy your life as much as possible.
Melissa Harris-Perry: I'm joined now by Debra Kamin, a contributor for the New York Times. She recently covered this trend for our paper. Debra, welcome to The Takeaway.
Debra Kamin: Thank you so much for having me.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Maria has me ready to just turn off the mic and quit the job and go do this work.
Debra Kamin: Oh, my God, it's true. I know.
Melissa Harris-Perry: What led you to discover this cohort of older workers who were taking these part-time jobs for travel benefits?
Debra Kamin: It's such a fun story. I belong to a couple of Facebook groups as part of just reporting that I do. One of them is called Girls LOVE Travel. It's a very large Facebook group of over a million members of women who love traveling, and they range from all ages. A few months ago, Maria made a post, and she said, "Hey, everyone, I just wanted to share this amazing thing that I've been doing. I work at United and my wife recently took a job at Hilton and we have this great international trip planned." I saw the post and I thought it was really interesting.
What actually was the most interesting thing about the post was the comments. Because I was scrolling through the people who commented on the post, and dozens upon dozens of other older women, all of the over 50, were saying, "Hey, I've done the exact same thing." I realized that there was probably something happening here, that was a really interesting trend I wanted to look further into.
Melissa Harris-Perry: I know your Facebook group is women, but as you've looked into this trend, is it primarily about women, or are we seeing this across genders?
Debra Kamin: It is across genders, but it's definitely more women, and I think there's a couple of reasons for that. One of them is there's a lot of people who have someone at home who's been paying the bills for them, and they have not done things in their lives that they wanted to do. Some of the other people I interviewed for this story was a mom of seven who had never used her passport before.
She said, "I only make $20 an hour working for the airline." You can't pay your mortgage on this job, but you can supplement and you can live out dreams in a way you never wanted to before. Also, women tend to be a little more resourceful and creative in certain ways. There's something about this trend that is striking more with older females as opposed to older men.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Talk to me on both sides. How do companies benefit from having these older workers, and how are older workers benefiting from these part-time jobs?
Debra Kamin: This is a trend that's really a nice win-win for this difficult time that we're in. For hotels and airlines and the hospitality industry, in general, there's a real shortage of workers. Airlines and hotels laid off tons of workers during COVID, and they have not been successful in hiring them back at the rate they need to, particularly as travel has really come roaring back over the past few months. Then for these workers, the cost benefit ratio for them is huge.
You can seriously work just one shift a week for many of these airlines and take advantage of the full range of benefits that come with it. For united, for Delta, for any of the major airlines, if you are an employee, even if you're working 15 hours a week, you'll get access to the benefits, which mean that in the United States, you can fly for free, and if you want to fly internationally, all you pay are the taxes.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Do you suspect that these kinds of benefits will continue? I'm wondering for the companies, how do they make that bottom line work just 15 hours to have such big benefits?
Debra Kamin: Not only do I think that the benefits are going to continue, I think they're sweetening the benefits. I think that right now, companies are having so much trouble hiring people, that when they find something that's working to effectively bring in workers who are excited to be there, who are really great with customers who are eager to put in the time, they're going to promote those benefits, and encourage people to take advantage of them more and more. The thing about the benefits, it's not a perfect situation. You can fly for free, but you're flying standby. That means that if flights are sold out that day, you're not guaranteed a flight.
Melissa Harris-Perry: That makes sense to me, if you don't have young children at home, if it's two adults who've been through a few things in the world, they could pause, wait. I can see also why not only lifestyle choice, but maybe time of life makes sense for having a little bit more flexibility.
Debra Kamin: It's a perfect way to spend your retirement. You want to spend your retirement playing rummy cube with your friends at home or you want to spend it in the airport, maybe having a glass of Chardonnay while you're waiting for our flight to open up? For some people, the second option is much more appealing.
Melissa Harris-Perry: I think when I first heard the story was being pitched me by some of the younger workers on my team, and there were some folks at least who felt a little sad about it like, "Oh, my goodness, isn't this sad that older workers have to still be in the workplace?" Now, once I found out that older constituted 60, I thought, "Well, maybe not so much," but I do wonder like is this-- You talk about it as like, "Oh, this is the dream retirement." I think for some folks, that 15 hours of loading luggage in and out doesn't feel like a dream.
Debra Kamin: I think it's really important when you're thinking about this story to understand that no one I spoke to, and I don't think anyone working on these very small couple shifts a week is doing it for the money. No one that I spoke to is taking these jobs because they have to pay their bills.
Absolutely, there is a cohort of people, older, younger, all around who are working these jobs that are not well-paid, and perhaps are not covering their costs because they don't have other options. For this sector, these are people who do have disposable income, or are otherwise relatively comfortable, but they have found a way to travel at a level they could not otherwise. For them, it's a workaround.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Debra Kamin is contributor at the New York Times. Thanks for joining The Takeaway.
Debra Kamin: It was a pleasure. Thanks for having me.
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