When Resort Towns Lose Their Workforce
Updated: Aug 28, 2025
“The lines are growing longer at the ski lifts, but the people who make it all happen are living farther and farther away.”
Across America’s resort towns, from Jackson Hole to Lake Tahoe to Aspen, a quiet crisis is reshaping communities. Visitors see bustling streets, new hotels, and expanding developments. What they don’t see is the growing exodus of the very people who keep these towns alive — the teachers, nurses, firefighters, grocery clerks, and hospitality workers.
This isn’t just a housing story. It’s a community survival story.
The Price of Paradise
For decades, resort towns have attracted waves of investment. Wealthy buyers purchase second homes. Private equity firms scoop up resorts, and short-term rental platforms like Airbnb and VRBO turn what used to be long-term housing into weekend getaways.
The result? Housing prices that rise at a pace no local salary can match.
In Lake Tahoe, median home prices jumped by more than 30% in just one year, while over three-quarters of local renters now pay more than 50% of their income on housing.
In Jackson Hole, Wyoming, median home prices are hovering around $4.5 million, making ownership virtually impossible for workers earning local wages. When a landslide recently cut off a major commuter route, it underscored how fragile the situation is: essential workers were stranded, unable to reach the jobs that keep the town running.
In Sedona, Arizona, long-term renters have been evicted in favor of more lucrative vacation rentals, displacing residents and eroding the year-round community fabric.
These are not isolated cases. They are symptoms of a national trend.
The Human Cost
When workers can’t afford to live near where they work, the ripple effects spread fast:
Staffing shortages: Restaurants close early or don’t open at all. Resorts cut back services. Hospitals and schools scramble to fill shifts.
Commutes that crush families: Workers drive hours each way just to keep their jobs. That means less time with children, more stress, and more cars on the road.
Community hollowing: As families move away, school enrollment drops. Volunteer organizations shrink. The middle class disappears.
What’s left are towns polarized between those who can afford multimillion-dollar homes and those who can’t stay at all.
Why This Matters to Everyone
This isn’t just a problem for workers. It’s a problem for municipalities, which face declining community stability. It’s a problem for corporations, which rely on a steady labor force to operate hotels, restaurants, ski lifts, and shops. And it’s a problem for residents and visitors, who see the quality of life and service deteriorate as the workforce disappears.
At its heart, this is a sustainability issue. The lifeblood of a town is its' working families. A town cannot if it loses the very people who make it function.
Looking Ahead
Communities across the country are starting to recognize this crisis and experiment with solutions — from deed-restricted housing in Eagle County to motel conversions in Michigan. But much more is needed.
The truth is simple: if we want thriving resort communities, we need housing that’s affordable for the people who make those communities possible.
In our next post, we’ll explore one of the biggest accelerators of the crisis: the rise of vacation rentals and speculative investment — and how they’re pushing out local workers.
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