Restaurant Hiring Continues to Lag Behind Pre-Pandemic Levels After Growth in 2024

Full-service restaurant job levels in 2024 were still 4 percent lower than the levels from February 2020.

An employee collects payment at an Auntie Anne's and Cinnabon store in Livermore, Calif., on March 28, 2024. He's among hundreds of thousands of California fast-food workers who will be paid at least $20 per hour starting on April 1, 2025. AP Photo/Terry Chea

Full-service restaurants continue to struggle to reach pre-COVID-19 pandemic numbers, after 2024 ended with significant job growth in the leisure and hospitality industry.

According to the latest report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and a Jan. 10 analysis of the bureau’s data by the National Restaurant Association (NRA), eating and drinking places recorded a monthly increase of 29,800 jobs in December 2024 on a seasonally adjusted basis, up from an increase of 23,000 jobs in November 2024. The data show this marked only the second time in 2024 that the industry added more than 20,000 jobs in consecutive months.

The sector added 172,500 jobs last year, but this outcome paled in comparison with the 309,000 jobs added in 2023. NRA analysts attributed the drop to “nearly four years of catching up from pandemic-induced job losses.”

The NRA analysis states that “significant differences still exist by segment,” pointing to the full-service restaurant segment, which experienced the most significant job losses during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic and still has “the longest path to recovery.”

According to the analysis, as of November 2024, full-service restaurant job levels were still 4 percent lower than pre-COVID-19 pandemic numbers from February 2020. Employment in the cafeterias, grill buffets, and buffets segment was 31 percent lower than February 2020 levels.

Effects of Minimum Wage Hikes

While the restaurant industry continues to take small steps toward returning to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels, some are concerned that an increasing number of states imposing higher minimum wage levels in 2025 will slow that progress.

“Restaurants are opening all the time, but we’re having a hard time in Missouri,” Buddy Lahl, CEO of the Missouri Restaurant Association, told The Epoch Times.

Lahl is a plaintiff in a lawsuit against Proposition A—passed in November 2024—which raised the minimum wage in Missouri to $13.75 on Jan. 1, 2024, with new mandatory sick pay laws also included. As part of Proposition A, the minimum wage in Missouri will be raised again, to $15, on Jan. 1, 2026.

“When you add costs to an employer, you have to raise costs for the customer,” Lahl said, adding that two family-owned restaurants in Missouri, in business for more than 20 years, have already closed since the law was passed.

“The smaller ones on the bubble are going to struggle. When you’re a restaurant and you finally begin to make financial headway and get a devastating blow like this, it especially hurts the small businesses.”

Lahl and the Missouri Restaurant Association are suing the state over a perceived election violation in passing Proposition A. The case is expected to go to the Missouri Supreme Court next month, with a decision expected before May 1.

Missouri is one of 11 states that have raised the minimum wage this year, with rates ranging from $11.91 in Alaska to more than $16 in Connecticut, Washington state, parts of New York state, and California, according to payroll management company ADP.

The NRA stated that while restaurant employment edged higher nationally last year, job growth was uneven across states. Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia had fewer restaurant jobs than in November 2019. Maryland has lost the most restaurant jobs since 2019, down by 7.2 percent.

Lahl said it is difficult to view the restaurant industry as a single entity. Smaller and larger restaurants, chains, fast-food places, and casual dining establishments are experiencing different employment scenarios and are also affected differently when a minimum wage is raised.

With many restaurants trying to make do with fewer employees, Lahl also pointed to differences in how restaurants adapt to new technology needed to serve customers.

“Quick-serve restaurants adapt to tech faster than fine dining, for instance,” he said. “Casual service is just now starting to adapt, but at the end of the day, you can never replace the human factor.”