Restaurants and bars accelerated their hiring in January despite widespread reports that the surge in COVID infections from the omicron variant had dampened sales and traffic, onboarding about 108,200 new workers in total, new federal statistics show.
The additions accounted for roughly one of every four new hires by all employers outside of the farm sector, according to the just-released statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
The industry’s January recruitments compare with the addition of about 103,000 jobs in December. It remained the nation’s leading creator of jobs.
BLS found that January wages at leisure and hospitality businesses topped the prevailing rates of a year ago by more than 13%, signaling that the supply for restaurant and bar workers still far outstrips demand. The industry’s collective payroll grew to 11.4 million, still down about 1 million jobs from pre-pandemic employment levels.
Restaurant and bar jobs
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Friday’s job report brought surprisingly good news overall about hiring. Earlier in the week, Biden administration officials had taken to news and talk shows to temper expectations. They noted the job numbers would likely be disappointing because they were gathered during the height of the omicron surge.
To the contrary, nonfarm jobs grew by 467,000 in January, compared with increases of 311,000 and 398,000 in December and November, respectively.
Unemployment remained at 4%.
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