While the operating environment will remain challenging, America’s 980,000restaurants are expected to post record sales and continue to be a leading job creator in 2013, according to the NationalRestaurant Association’s (NRA) 2013 Restaurant IndustryForecast released today. Total restaurant industry salesare expected to exceed $660 billion in 2013 – a 3.8 percentincrease over 2012, marking the fourth consecutive year of real sales growth for the industry.
In addition, 2013 will be the 14th straight year in which restaurant industry employment willoutpace overall employment. Restaurants will employ 13.1million individuals next year as the nation’s second-largest private-sector employer, representing 10 percent of the totalU.S. workforce.
Total U.S. employment grew at a rate of 1.4percent in 2012, while restaurants added jobs at a strong 3.0percent rate – more than double the overall rate. In 2013, theNRA expects the restaurant industry to add jobs at a 2.4percent rate, nearly a full percentage point above theprojected 1.5 percent gain in total employment.
Looking ahead, the NRA expects restaurantsto add 1.3 million new positions in the next decade, pushing industry employment to 14.4 million by 2023.
Because of this strong growth in restaurantemployment, labor challenges will start to reemerge next year.Recruitment and retention, which was a top challengepre-recession, will make its way back onto restaurantoperators’ radar as the U.S. labor pool is starting to become shallower; restaurant operators in all segments expectrecruitment and retention to be more challenging in 2013 thanin 2012.
posted by Tiffany Haslacker
01/10/2013
