Vice President, Research and Knowledge, National Restaurant Association (Twitter/X: @chadmoutray)
There were 771,000 accommodation and foodservices job openings in May, down sharply from 1,034,000 and 918,000 in March and April, respectively. While the labor market remains solid overall, these data suggest that job postings in the accommodation and foodservices sector have cooled notably in the past couple of months, with the overall level normalizing dramatically from post-pandemic record highs. It is worth noting that the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey data can be highly volatile from month to month, and as such, one should not make too much of one month’s shift. As such, the June data will be closely watched to see if the large drop seen in May is sustained or possibly reversed, looking for the longer-term trend. For now, job openings in the sector have fallen below the average seen in the 2017–2019 period, which was 835,000. Accommodation and food services businesses hired 815,000 in May, down from 843,000 in April. At the same time, there were 779,000 total separations in the sector in May, down from 827,000 in April and the lowest reading since February 2021. As such, labor market activity in the sector also slowed, but with net hiring (or hires minus separations) rising to 36,000 for the month. For the full National Restaurant Association blog post, see https://lnkd.in/es9siSzz.
Founder and CEO @ RL Technologies | International Payment Processing Consultant | Restaurant Consultant | Unattended Payment Solutions Specialist
4moI’m interested in seeing what will happen to those numbers in the next two months with all of the restaurant chains and independently owned restaurant closures we are seeing in California. It may drop another 100k.