Despite the recent wave of chain bankruptcies and other signs of worsening conditions within the restaurant business, eating and drinking places continued to outpace almost every other economic sector in hiring during August, adding 29,900 jobs, or roughly one of every five jobs created last month.
New federal data shows only construction and healthcare employment increased by larger increments, with additions of 34,000 and 31,000, respectively.
The report Friday morning from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics noted that hiring in August by restaurants and bars was relatively consistent with the sector’s additions of positions in prior months. But hiring economy-wide dropped precipitously, from an average of more 200,000 new jobs per month over the prior year to the preliminary August tally of 142,000, a decline of roughly 30%.
The preliminary figures for restaurants and bars indicate that employment within the sector has finally reached pre-pandemic levels, with 12.4 million employed in total, compared with the Feb. 2020 figure of 12.3 million. But BLS has reported before that industry employment had rebounded fully, only to subsequently adjust the figures downward by significant measures.
The national unemployment rate held steady in August at 4.2%, BLS reported. That compares with a year-ago level of 3.8%.
The steadiness in restaurant hiring is a rare bit of positive news amid an ongoing wave of reports about restaurant chain bankruptcies, management shakeups, downturns in traffic and even corporate restructurings. The conventional wisdom holds that the historic inflation levels of recent years has driven menu prices to levels that have prompted consumers to cut down on dining out, cooking at home instead.
But that apparently isn't slowing hiring.
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