CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas —
The Corpus Christi Parks and Recreation Department is looking to hire 53 lifeguards for the city pools and 40 for gulf beaches.
Department director Robert Dodd says those who become lifeguards will see an increase in the pay from previous years.
"The gulf beach lifeguards are going from $13.95 an hour to $18.09 an hour. That's huge for us," Dodd said. "It's going to help us recruit lots of applicants that want to make that money, our pool lifeguards were at $13.28 and we're going to be able to move them to $14.08, which is pretty significant as well."
He said this pay increase isn't just beneficial for the lifeguards but the department as whole.
"With our pay increases, we can hire more and we're able to retain many lifeguards that will come back next summer," Dodd said. "They'll have to do a little lit of training, but not as much as someone brand new coming in."
With thousands of people visiting the city's pools and beaches every summer, Dodd says these lifeguards play an important role.
"They're the first responders for us and they work very hard, and it's something that we're excited about," Dodd said. "Last year at the beaches we had almost 34,000 contacts. That's dealing with anything from maybe being stung by a jellyfish to some preventables where we see somebody and there's a red flag out and they're getting a little too far out and we can redirect them back in."
For more information on lifeguard applications, click here.
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