Oct 10, 2023 - Economy
Restaurant employment is back to pre-COVID levels
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The restaurant industry is back — sort of.
Driving the news: Employment levels in food services and bars finally crept past February 2020 levels, according to the latest jobs report.
- Yes, but: That's below the pre-pandemic trend. Were it not for the pandemic, employment would be more than 1 million higher, explains Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter.
Zoom in: Prior to 2020, this was an industry growing at an "exceptional" pace, she says. But the disruptions of COVID were monumental.
- When restaurants all shut down in 2020, millions of employees were displaced. When they reopened, many restaurants had a hard time finding enough workers.
Be smart: Dining out has changed. The shift to remote work has disrupted dining-out patterns. Lunchtime is different in a lot of downtowns.
- And other customer habits are shifting — limited service restaurants, think fast-casual, have seen growth. Employment there rose by about 117,000 between February 2020 and August, according to the latest available government data.
- But full-service restaurants have seen employment fall by 212,000 over the same period.
The bottom line: Given all the disruptions, the industry's recovery is almost "miraculous," Pollak says.
