Hunt for a job at sea stopped by passport

October 14, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

Miami Herald

MIAMI

As an unemployed yoga instructor, Cynthia Cutler was excited to get an email response so quickly from a recruiter at Canyon Ranch at Sea, which runs spas and fitness programs for posh cruise ships sailing out of South Florida.

“I was looking to leave Miami,” said Cutler, 57 and a Key Biscayne, Fla., resident. “I thought a job on a cruise ship would be perfect.”

Then came the question that seemed to scuttle Cutler’s chance for a seafaring career change: Which country issued your passport?

“Oh my goodness!” Thalia Shaer, Canyon Ranch’s international recruitment coordinator, wrote back in the Sept. 17 exchange, according to emails Cutler provided The Miami Herald. “Cynthia, the Sea Division is not allowed to accept American staff due to tax laws in the U.S.”

A Canyon Ranch spokeswoman later described Shaer’s email as an error and said Canyon Ranch’s cruise line division has no policy against hiring U.S. residents for its spas on Regent’s Seven Seas Navigator, Oceania’s Marina and other ships that contract with Canyon Ranch and have sailed out of U.S. ports.

“We hire the best person for the job, no matter what their nationality is,” said Sheryl Press, spokeswoman for Canyon Ranch, which is headquartered in Tucson, Ariz.

Still, the numbers suggest some challenge in matching U.S. residents with Canyon Ranch jobs at sea. Press said that of the 115 spa employees in its cruise ship arm, only four are U.S. citizens.

“Our positions don’t turn over very often,” Press said. “People obviously enjoy what they’re doing, and not that many openings come up.”

Cutler’s ongoing hunt for a spa job at sea — Canyon Ranch has since written back to set up an interview in Miami for November — touches on a well-known characteristic of the cruise industry. While a major employer shoreside through Carnival and Royal Caribbean’s world headquarters, cruise lines recruit the bulk of their ship workers from abroad.

Figures are hard to come by. Carnival, the world’s largest cruise line, said it does not release nationality breakdowns for its roughly 77,000 shipboard employees on the 99 ships it operates around the world.

In a statement, Carnival spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz said the U.S. holds a spot in the top 10 source countries for Carnival shipboard employees. The U.S. has the world’s third-largest population.

“Carnival Cruise Lines has numerous Americans working aboard our ships, and we routinely hire American crew members,” de la Cruz wrote. “The cruise industry is very international in nature, and we typically have crew from more than 100 different countries employed on our vessels.”

David Peikin, a spokesman for the Cruise Lines International Association, said the trade group was unaware of any U.S. tax law that would discourage cruise ships from hiring Americans.

He also described cruise ships as offering jobs in demand around the world. “Jobs in the cruise industry are highly desirable and highly sought after,” he said. “In addition to their salary, crew members typically receive free medical care, room and board, meals and many other benefits that are often unavailable in their home countries.”