Labor Shock and Pay Raises Fuel a Dining Transformation
Even before pandemic lockdowns and the “Great Resignation,” the economics of restaurants were changing. Now they’re serving more food with fewer, better-paid workers.
Restaurants have made peace with having fewer workers.
Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
The Covid-19 pandemic was a huge shock for the restaurant industry, with spending on and employment in food services both falling almost 50% from February to April 2020. Spending recovered quickly and is now back on its pre-pandemic trend even after adjusting for the inflation that followed. Employment, on the other hand, hasn’t kept pace.
I made a version of this chart for a column a year ago, and the picture hasn’t changed much. Employment in food services is now ever so slightly higher than before the pandemic, but it’s about 1.2 million jobs short of where it would be if the January 2010-to-February 2020 trend had continued. At full-service restaurants, defined as those “primarily engaged in providing food services to patrons who order and are served while seated (i.e., waiter/waitress service) and pay after eating,” seasonally adjusted employment as of August was still 212,300 jobs, or 3.8%, lower than in February 2020.