Service Jobs - Food-Accommodation

Accommodation and Food Services (revised fall 2024)

Accommodation and Food Services jobs total 14.075 million by 2024. The accommodation part has traveler accommodations, not residential accommodation. Include hotels, motels, bed and breakfast inns, casino hotels, RV parks, campgrounds and rooming and boarding houses. Rooming and Boarding houses include dormitories, fraternity and sorority houses.

Establishments primarily engaged in preparing food to order for immediate consumption go in this sector as full and limited service restaurants but the key words are preparing food and immediate consumption.  Food services have to have both and the definition also fits fast food outlets, cafeterias, pizza delivery, snack bars, takeout, catering, ice cream parlors, and beverage bars. Establishments primarily selling food prepared elsewhere and not packaged for immediate consumption are counted with grocery stores.

Accommodations have 13.4 percent, or 1.891 million of the jobs, where as foodservices has the other 86.6 percent, or 12.184 million of the jobs. However, other sectors have restaurant jobs. For example, a hotel could run a restaurant even though it is primarily engaged in running a hotel. There is one establishment with hotel workers and food service workers. The same hotel might lease their first floor to an independent restaurateur so there might be two establishments, a hotel and a restaurant. In the former the jobs are counted in the accommodation sub sector, and in the latter, food jobs are split between accommodation and food services.

Food service occupations like cooks, bartenders, hosts and hostesses, waiters and waitresses, counter attendants, bartenders, dishwashers make up 88 percent of restaurant staffing. Cashiers have 346.3 thousand jobs but only 2.8 percent of staffing. Drivers have another 224.2 thousand jobs, but only 1.8 percent of staffing. Around 20 percent of food service jobs are scattered in accommodations, in health care where hospitals run food services, at schools which have cafeterias, at ball parks and theatres which run restaurants and sell fast food.

The accommodation industry has 23 percent of staffing in food service occupations and significant building and grounds maintenance occupations that include 406.5 thousand maids and housekeeping cleaners, almost 22 percent of jobs in hotel-motel employment. Desk clerks have another 253.8 thousand jobs or 13.4 percent of jobs at hotels, motels and resorts. Managerial occupations have 116.7 thousand jobs including lodging managers with 38.8 thousand of the jobs and general and operations managers having 30.7 thousand more. Managerial positions make up a little over 6 percent accommodations staffing. Only a few jobs or occupations use college degree skills and not too many stay around to make restaurant work a career.  The net separation rate for an occupation measures the percentage of new entrants needed to replace people who permanently leave an occupation.

Add the 12.183 million jobs in restaurants mentioned above to the other food service workers in accommodations, schools, hospitals, retail stores or ball parks, museums and other recreation facilities and the total comes to a little over 13.248 million food service jobs in the whole economy.

Cooking used to be one of America’s biggest do it yourself occupations. Everyone can stay home and cook, but more and more we go out. In the production-marketing chain of food this helps our employment and probably more than most people realize. Start on the farm and let’s count America’s farmers. Next add all the jobs in pesticide, fertilizer and agricultural chemicals, and all of the jobs in agricultural implement manufacturing. Add in the jobs at farm supply wholesalers, and farm raw material wholesalers. Then move on to food manufacturing. Add all the manufacturing jobs milling, canning, freezing, bottling, refining, slaughtering, baking, brewing, distilling, fermenting and packaging. Add them to grocery store merchant wholesaler jobs and all the jobs at grocery stores, convenience stores, liquor stores and food stores. The total comes to 8.811 million jobs by 2024.

Worse, jobs from the farm to the supermarket continue to decline due to productivity growth and imports in the global economy. Restaurants are the only part of the food chain Americans can count on for new jobs. You may like to go to restaurants; you may need to go to restaurants, but America needs jobs, so now you know, you must go to restaurants. It’s your civic duty. Go often.

Maybe a few get rich in the restaurant business but if we look at the wage data reported for the BLS occupational employment survey, then food services median annual wages are dead last among America’s occupations. The median annual wage of $32,240 in May 2023 was last among the 22 categories of America’s Standard Occupational classification. Food service occupations last in 2022 with a median wage of $29,640 as they were last in 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017 and so forth.

With a 134.453 million service jobs to divvy up, accommodation and food services employment gives us 14.075 million jobs, but that is only 9.02 percent of establishment employment.  Accommodation and food services employment continues to grow at rates faster than the national average and continues to provide replacement jobs for the declining share of manufacturing employment. We have to expect a relative increase in accommodation and food services in national employment. We only have 1 sector left to go; government with 11.113 million jobs.