Hotels See Big Jobs Jump in April But Labor Shortage Crisis Still Looms
Photo Credit: Hospitality can't afford to lose its current job gains heading into what many expect to be an extraordinarily busy summer. Pixabay / pasja1000
Skift Take
Hotels were the bright spot in an otherwise disappointing jobs report, but there’s no time for a victory lap. Hiring has to maintain April’s strong momentum, at the very least, to meet summer demand. That’s a tall task in such a tight labor market.
A disappointing April jobs report in the U.S. is the latest reminder many businesses are staring down the upcoming peak summer travel season with nowhere near the staffing levels needed to accommodate demand. But hotels still have some reasons to celebrate, even as anxiety over that labor shortage in travel grows.
The hotel industry added 54,000 jobs — the biggest monthly gain since last September — and hotel unemployment dropped to 13.8 percent from the 19.9 percent seen in March, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. The U.S. overall added 266,000 jobs last month, well below economist expectations the number might eclipse 1 million.
What's more, hospitality wage increases are back to pre-pandemic trend lines. Average hourly wages for a non-supervisor hospitality job increased more than 7 percent during the pandemic.
Hotels have run well above the national unemployment rate average for the duration of the pandemic, but this is the narrowest gap between the
