The essay below was writting for my leadership class during my Spring 2025 semester. Written during an ethical leadership class, several different subjects were covered, including when to do layoffs, and how. I tried to handle this the best I could for the subject, because jobs are many people's livelihood, and losing said job is crushing. It is something I try to avoid thinking about, because it really makes me sad about how much it affects people, and this is reflected given how short my essay is.
Alexander J Firlik
LEAD 3020
March 16th, 2025
For many people, your future hasn’t been written yet. No one has, because it's a great big world out there, filled with many opportunities. Your future is whatever you make it to be, and for many, they try to make it a good one. As you navigate through life, journeying down its winding path through the bright sunny days and its dark stormy nights, you are faced with many challenges, struggles, and dilemmas that you will need to face. For those within the Attraction industry, that struggle currently is how to manage their workforce. A workforce that is seemingly too much for what many places need.
The world is ever changing post Covid-19, it's an undeniable fact. The early 2020s were faced with an economic downturn in nearly all aspects of the economy, from tourism, dining, recreation, hospitality, and attractions. It was not helped when within two years of this major downturn a massive tourism boom occurred, from the many people who were kept cooped up inside their homes having the desire to see the world. With this whiplash for the service based industries, they went from laying off or furloughing employees to prevent themselves from going under, to suddenly needing those workers back and more people to help meet growing demands. For many people in charge of their respective industries, this boom seemed like it would go on for a long time, and would expand their workforce from 2021-2023 to attempt to meet demand.
To make this case easier to study, we need to narrow it down to more specifics. Looking at two big name parks that announced layoffs in 2025, Carowinds and Kings Dominion, these two parks had a rather rocky beginning to the 2020s. Both were first affected by Covid-19, suffering major losses in 2020, then seeing the large boom in attendance in 2021, these two parks would begin to hire more staff to run these parks effectively. WSOCTv reported on Carowinds’ hiring, saying, “Carowinds has announced plans to hire approximately 2,000 associates for their 2021 season. As part of its ramp-up to reopening…” The growth was so positive that they both went on to do year round operations for 2023, rather than just seasonally like they had been prior to 2023. This experiment failed, and both parks saw low attendance and losses, leading to the discontinuation of year round operations for the 2024 year. This was reported on by Northern Virginia Magazine, with them reporting, “Kings Dominion won’t be open year-round after December. The move by the theme park comes a year after it started the practice.”
Unfortunately for those formally employed by Kings Dominion and Carowinds, the solution that was isolated was indeed layoffs, and that would go on to be implemented in January 2025. The decision to lay off people would have been a challenging one. Many people were hired with the idea that both Kings Dominion and Carowinds would continue operating year round, providing a stable job to work. Laying them off would bring upon challenges for them, such as finding a new job. However, the alternate solutions could have been to either lower the pay of all the employees to keep them all employed, or trying to transfer to a different park. Lowering pay, however, has its own problems. Many people who work for you would become upset by suddenly losing a portion of their income with no clear reason why. Their personal lives could be severely impacted by the decreased amount of cash flow. Moving people to different parks is also difficult, as it would usually require you to move significantly far to take on the job.
Managing a theme park is no easy task. Managing a park that would go through so many rapid changes in the span of 5 years, from a pandemic, to going year round, to going back to seasonal, must also be a challenge. Who knows what the next 5 years will bring to tourism. Perhaps a second slump will occur followed by a huge boom in travel like we saw in 2020 and 2021, or perhaps it finally stabilizes and people can now reliably travel, and parks can reliably employ people to work them. The future for these parks may seem far and dark, but if you follow the simple goal of making people happy, you can navigate any sort of trouble you will find.
Hayes, Richard. Kings Dominion Announces Plan to Hire 2,100 Associates for 2021 Season. RVAHub, 2 Mar. 2021, rvahub.com/2021/03/02/kings-dominion-announces-plan-to-hire-2100-associates-for-2021-season/ . Accessed 18 Mar. 2025.
Johnson, Craig E. Organizational Ethics. 5th ed., SAGE Publications, 2021.
Kelleher, Colleen. Kings Dominion Wont Be Open Year-Round. Northern Virginia Magazine, 26 Oct. 2023, northernvirginiamag.com/news/2023/10/26/kings-dominion-wont-be-open-year-round/ . Accessed 18 Mar. 2025.
McGarry Weber, Courtney. Carowinds to Be Open Weekends in January, February, and Early March. Carowinds.com, 18 Oct. 2022, www.carowinds.com/blog/media-center/carowinds-expanding-to-year-round-operations . Accessed 18 Mar. 2025.
Muccigrosso, Catherine. Carowinds Lays off Workers ahead of Season Opening, Similar to Another Six Flags Park. Charlotte Observer, 30 Jan. 2025, www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/article299317534.html . Accessed 18 Mar. 2025.
---. Carowinds Wont Be Open Year-Round after All. 2024 Season Shows Reopening in March. Charlotte Observer, 25 Oct. 2023, www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/article280979123.html . Accessed 18 Mar. 2025.
Sidersky, Robyn. Kings Dominion to Remain Open Year-Round. Virginia Business, 18 Oct. 2022, virginiabusiness.com/kings-dominion-to-remain-open-year-round/ . Accessed 18 Mar. 2025.
Staff, WSOCTV.com News. Carowinds to Host Virtual Hiring Event, Seeking 2,000 Workers for Upcoming Season. WSOC TV, 3 Mar. 2021, www.wsoctv.com/news/local/carowinds-host-virtual-hiring-event-seeking-2000-workers-new-season/PCMSKT3MQJDVBCVY7DRHUAGQUA/ . Accessed 18 Mar. 2025.
Tuttle, Marysa. Kings Dominion Confirms Layoffs, Full-Time Employees to Receive Severance Pay. WRIC ABC 8News, 23 Jan. 2025, www.wric.com/news/local-news/hanover-county/kings-dominion-confirms-layoffs-full-time-employees-to-receive-severance-pay/ . Accessed 18 Mar. 2025.
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