As the summer season approaches, employers have several things on their mind, but one of the

most important is filling their open positions.

Right now there are more than 900 open jobs in Flathead County, a record high, according to Robbin Gard, work-force consultant at the Flathead Job Service. He credits this growing pile of jobs to the recent development boom in Kalispell and around the Flathead Valley.

“There’s a myriad of reasons, but there’s been a huge amount of growth due to that north-end expansion,” Gard said.

Gard said most of the jobs available come from the service, retail and national park industries.

Gard expects that pool of 900 open jobs to continue to climb because as summer approaches, two things generally happen in the employment realm: Customer demand for services increases, and a number of employees leave their jobs, Gard said. This generally spells trouble for service industry employers looking to maximize their business during one of the two tourist seasons in the Flathead.

At the Job Service, connecting employers with potential employees can be difficult, Gard said. Oftentimes the pay is too little or not defined at all, leaving job seekers with a feeling of uncertainty when looking for temporary- or full-time occupations.

“We have a number of employers that leave wages negotiable and we also have a lot of job seekers who say they won’t look at it if they don’t list wages,” Gard said.

Gard said there are several ways employers can better recruit and retain employees, like offering training to new employees. He encourages employers to be creative in today’s market as millennials are looking for a different work and play balance than previous generations.

Jordan Nelson, operations manager at a staffing agency called Express Employment Professionals, got a close-up and rapid-fire look at the new generation of employees at the Flathead Job Fair in late April at Flathead Valley Community College. Express Professionals interviewed more than 100 people during the event, which lasted only a few hours. The staffing agency collected 60 resumes and brought in 40 people for interviews.

Nelson said he has employers from several different industries looking to fill the employment gap as customers fly in for the summer season.

“The biggest one right now is skilled workers for construction. We get so busy during the summer with construction work, but with the population almost doubling over the summer we do a lot of hotels as well,” Nelson said.

Nelson said there are several reasons employees leave their job in the summer, but unsurprisingly, and most often, it’s for a raise. In the internet age, it’s easy to stay on the job hunt for even a $1 raise doing a different low-skill service job. The problem for employees, he said, is that the better-paying job is sometimes only a temporary position, leaving that employee out of work in the fall.

“The employees are the ones in control right now,” he said. “They’ll take that raise and hop over to a new company, especially with hotels.”

On the employer side, Nelson said, some are simply stuck in their ways of not raising wages, while others just can’t. Smaller businesses have trouble affording the extra pay.

Nelson believes that one key to retaining these millennial employees in 2016 is allowing them something that goes beyond money: time off to enjoy the environment in which they choose to live.

“What we’ve seen in the millennial generation coming is they want time off. They’re switching from ‘live to work’ to ‘work to live,’” Nelson said. “Obviously, Montana summers are awesome. Being able to accommodate that is huge.”

Nelson said he’s seen companies successfully retain employees by changing a rigid schedule to a more flexible schedule, allowing employees to take an occasional afternoon or Friday off. He said he’s employing the same tactics in his own office after hiring some extra hands to help during the busy summer.

The state unemployment rate was 4.3 percent in March, 0.7 percent below the national average, according to the Montana Department of Labor and Industry. In the same month, Flathead County unemployment came in at 7.1 percent, a 0.3 percent drop from one year ago.

At the county perspective, Nelson believes the unemployment rate will continue at a lower rate than 2015. With a more shallow pool of job seekers, Nelson said employers have to be ahead of the game before the summer season truly arrives in late June.

“I know this summer we’ll be tight for employees again,” he said. “Maybe even tighter with unemployment starting out lower than last year. Employers need to be thinking ahead about hiring early — then keeping them on and giving them the wage they deserve because they will jump if they don’t feel valued.”

Reporter Seaborn Larson may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at slarson@dailyinterlake.com.