Hospitality Industry Job Openings Top 500,000
WASHINGTON -- Job openings in the hospitality sector topped 500,000 for the seventh consecutive month in July, the first such occurrence since before the Great Recession. While the industry isn’t facing a labor shortage, the gap between monthly hires and job openings is rapidly shrinking, the National Restaurant Association said Thursday.
The rate of open jobs in the restaurants-and-accommodations sector remained near a post-recession high in July, say the latest figures from the job openings and labor turnover program of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The BLS recorded 583,000 job openings at restaurants and lodging places the last business day in July, on a seasonally adjusted basis, says Bruce Grindy, chief economist at the National Restaurant Association. This represented the seventh consecutive month with job openings exceeding 500,000, the first time in nearly seven years. It was also a jump of more than 100,000 job openings over figures reported last December.
At the same time, the pace of hiring in the hospitality sector is rising. Restaurants and lodging places filled 706,000 positions in July, the third consecutive month total hires topped 700,000.
The "hires" figures represent the total number of additions to the payroll during the month. Net job growth -- which for eating and drinking places is in the range of plus or minus 30,000 in a typical month -- is the difference between total hires and total separations.
Overall, both hiring and job openings has trended upward the last few years, as would be expected during a recovery, Grindy said. However, growth in the number of hospitality job openings has accelerated sharply in recent months, a development out of sync with the pace of hiring.
Although the level of concern among restaurant operators has fallen off somewhat since May, Grindy said he wouldn’t be surprised should a shortage of workers emerge in the near future.
Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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