Summer resorts hiring heavily among unemployed

(File photo: Janet Knott/Globe staff)

PROVIDENCE - The guy running the Tilt-A-Whirl this summer might be a laid-off accountant instead of a bored teenager.

Summer businesses nationwide are getting swamped with applications from out-of-work Americans, including professionals.

They are competing for jobs usually filled by young people and foreigners. Those might include serving brunch, mowing lawns, and operating carnival games and rides.

Ramon Villanueva was laid off last year from a Philadelphia audio-visual company where he earned $50,000 a year. Now he makes $8 an hour running the Frog Bog game on the boardwalk in Seaside Heights, N.J.

The 22-year-old has a wife and two young children and says that he never thought he'd be working there, but that it pays the bills. (AP)