Ski Resorts Find Help ‘Down Under’ : Recreation: Along with Aussie and Kiwi accents, skiers also are encountering higher prices for lift tickets, icier roads and a proliferation of previously banned snow boards.

With young ski bums fading from the scene--another phenomenon of the aging American population--California mountain resorts are reaching south for workers willing to endure low pay in order to ski for free all winter.

“G’day mate,” said Brian Ross, self-proclaimed “year-round skier” and part-time food server, sitting with friends inside the Bar of America here. He is one of 300 or more Australians and New Zealanders imported for the season at Sierra ski areas.

The “down under” English of the Aussies and Kiwis has--along with $35 lift tickets, icier roads and the proliferation of snow boards--dealt tradition a beating this ski season, which began before Thanksgiving at most Northern California resorts.

In past winters, ski areas employed a few dozen Australians and New Zealanders, mostly as ski instructors. But this year the ski resorts have recruited overseas even for less-skilled jobs as groomers, lift operators and cafeteria workers--with the blessing of U.S. and state labor officials.

The reason is that ski areas are finding it harder to entice Americans to take the low-paying, often bone-chilling jobs running lifts, grooming slopes and checking tickets. The work itself hasn’t changed much. But there are fewer young people willing to endure the hardships, even for the chance to ski for free and enjoy a white Christmas.

“These ski resorts hire literally thousands of people in season, and the numbers (of job seekers) just aren’t here,” said Michael Henriques, Lake Tahoe manager of the state Employment Development Department. “Typically these ski jobs are filled by younger people. And there are just fewer 20-year-olds coming into the labor market.”

The U.S. Department of Labor, which must certify that the foreign workers are necessary, began in late November to publicize that the jobs were going begging. But officials found little demand, even in the Truckee area, where the town’s landmark sawmill closed down before Thanksgiving.

“It puzzles us,” said Paul Nelson, who oversees the foreign visa program for the Department of Labor in San Francisco. “We’ve had no one apply as a result of any publicity.”

Ski area managers say the shortage of workers has worsened steadily through the late 1980s. Low-paying employers in many parts of California face the same problem in attracting help, but it is more acute in resort areas such as the Lake Tahoe region, where casinos, motels and restaurants also compete for workers.

Ski areas have fought the trend with more aggressive recruiting and higher wages. During the summer, for example, Mammoth Mountain decided to increase wages by 20% for some jobs. A ski lift crew member with no experience makes $6 an hour this season, up $1 from last season. (Lift prices also shot up by $5, to $35).

“As recently as five years ago there were lines to get jobs here,” said Mammoth personnel director John Denault. “Now we have to recruit.”

The supply of available, willing help has shrunk with the slow demise of the ski bum, that breed of American youth who would scrape by at odd jobs in order to ski their legs off all winter. Recruiters for the ski areas say they cannot find enough students and recent graduates who are willing to delay their careers to ski.

“They are not giving themselves time to go off and play for awhile,” said Tim Newhart, marketing director at Heavenly Valley, the large South Lake Tahoe ski area with slopes on both sides of the California-Nevada border.

Heavenly Valley so far has hired about 65 workers from overseas, not a high percentage of its 1,200 employees, but more than in past years. Elsewhere in the Tahoe area, half a dozen smaller resorts have applied for government approval to hire more than 200 Australians and New Zealanders, and as many as 100 may also be employed under cultural exchange programs.

For the ski areas the imports are a near-perfect match. They speak English and treasure the free ski lift pass. “I like to ski--and this lets me ski most of the year,” said Ross, 24, who said he is from a small town outside Sydney. Like Ross, many come directly from a full winter of ski resort work in the Southern hemisphere and need little training.

“They are generally the cream of the crop from Australian and New Zealand resorts,” said Greg Peterman, vice president for human resources at Heavenly Valley.

Foreigners are also attractive to the resorts because they tend to stay until spring. Every January the ski areas are thrown into disarray when many of their American employees rush back to college campuses, an annual ritual that depletes the staff at a time when the snow is often good and crowds are high.

“We lose about half our staff when school starts up in January,” said Mammoth’s Denault. “And it’s real difficult to recruit in January.”

Besides recruiting in the Southern Hemisphere, ski areas are also trying a packet of other tactics to lure and keep more workers. Mammoth is helping underwrite the costs of community college classes to begin next month in Mammoth Lakes, the town at the foot of the ski area, in the hope of enticing more student workers to stay past January.

Mammoth also offered more jobs to people whose usual employment gives them winters off--seasonal forestry workers and, for the first time, to Southern California beach lifeguards.

Some ski areas also have been forced to help pay the housing costs of workers. Heavenly Valley bought an apartment building and displaced local residents to make room for ski area workers--a controversial move in South Lake Tahoe, where new apartments have not been built in many years and where housing is at a premium.

Northstar, a north Tahoe resort, recently took over a hilltop lodge in Truckee for its employees. Northstar also has arranged to exchange employees with summer resorts in the upper Midwest--sending workers in summer to Mackinaw Island, Mich., and Brainard, Minn., and receiving workers in winter. But still, about 10% of Northstar’s 800 employees are foreign, most of them exchange students and recent graduates from Australia, New Zealand and Europe, said personnel manager Jacquelyn Cleary.

Besides hearing more Aussie accents, many skiers this season will also share the slopes with snow boards for the first time. Mammoth and most of the larger Tahoe ski areas--which forbade snow boards in past years--have opened their mountains to board riders, usually without restriction.

In part, the ski areas have learned not to fear the “shredders,” who carve turns down the slopes on boards that resemble a large skateboard. As with skateboards, the aficionados enjoy performing radical jumps and maneuvers, a practice that resorts feared would annoy family skiers.

But the ski industry has lured fewer new customers in recent years, and snow boarders are now seen by many ski areas as their best opportunity for growth.

“Snow boards are here to stay,” said Tim Newhart, spokesman for Heavenly Valley.

Another new feature in the Tahoe area this season is likely to be icier roads. After several thousand trees along Tahoe highways died last winter from tainted runoff water, the Legislature ordered the state Department of Transportation to use less salt on roads this winter. The salt melts snow and helps de-ice the roads.

For motorists, the use of less salt and experiments with other chemicals are expected to require more use of tire chains.