Puerto Rico’s Tourism Workers Are Rushing to Fill Recovery Jobs
- Federal employees fill rooms left empty by lack of tourists
- Down to $800, waitress hopes to find a paycheck with FEMA
Puerto Rico Risks Shutdown Awaiting Hurricane Funds
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Aliana Acevedo isn’t collecting a paycheck, because the Ritz-Carlton hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, is shut indefinitely. She’s trying to get a job with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a lifeline for the battered island’s tourism industry in more ways than one.
More than 13,000 federal government workers who were dispatched to Puerto Rico for hurricanes Irma and Maria are filling the open hotels –- sometimes three to a single room. For those that remain shuttered, the agency is giving idled employees hope until tourists return to the U.S. territory’s beaches, rain forests and colonial Spanish beauty.