CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A lifeguard shortage could impact your summer plans.

Spokesperson with the American Lifeguard Association, Wyatt Werneth, says a lifeguard shortage threatens to close or reduce the hours for half of the country’s public pools.

Werneth says even before the pandemic, the number of lifeguards declined every decade as people lost interest in the job. He says the pandemic impacted it even more.

But one place in Charlotte is seeing things improve.

Ame Guy, the association director of aquatics with the YMCA of Greater Charlotte, says things are starting to look up locally.

"Well, we are doing much better than we were last year,” she said.

While better, Guy says they’re still hiring and training.

The YMCA still needs about 150 lifeguards. Without them, they could be forced to make some decisions on which pools will be open.

“So you may see at some of our locations where we have one body of water open in a space where we've closed another body of water just due to staffing shortages,” Guy said.

She encourages people to apply for a lifeguard position.

“You know, we'll work with their schedules. It's part time. It's flexible,” Guy said.

Anyone interested can apply online.