Magic Mountain Short of Workers

Magic Mountain, the Valencia theme park, is short of smiling student faces willing to work at the park for $3.60 an hour during the summer.

Usually the park relies on high school and college students to fill out its staff for the busy summer season. But the park is still 600 employees short of its goal of 3,200 staffers, of which 1,700 of would be temporary summer employees, said Gary J. Vien, Magic Mountain’s personnel director.

“There is a general shrinkage in the number of 15- to 21-year-olds that is working against us,” he said.

Indeed, both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of the U.S. population, there is a decline in this age group. As a result, Vien said, there is heavy competition among other Santa Clarita Valley firms looking for summer student help, including fast-food hamburger places and other retail stores.

So for the first time Magic Mountain has been trying a direct mail campaign aimed at local high school students to try and lure them to work for the theme park, in addition to sending recruiters to high schools.

“It’s definitely an employee’s market,” Vien said.

Vien has also been recruiting retirees and housewives to work the summer shift, he said, with limited success.

Last year Magic Mountain had 2.8 million visitors, but better than 70% of the park’s attendance comes between Memorial Day and Labor Day when it is open seven days a week, instead of operating on a weekend and holiday schedule as it does in the winter.

Magic Mountain, a part of the Six Flags amusement park chain, was sold recently by Bally Manufacturing in Chicago for $350 million cash to Wesray Capital Corp., a firm operated by former Treasury Secretary William E. Simon. The Six Flags theme park division last year had $269 million in revenue.