Restaurant Jobs Boom Across Country As Wages Continue To Fall

Would you like your job with a side of wage decline?

Restaurants and the food service industry added 188,500 jobs in March, well more than the net gain of 120,000 jobs in the economy as a whole when jobs losses in other sectors are factored in, according to the Labor Department.

Yet the food service and restaurant sector carries another distinction: This is one of just two sectors with wage declines over the past year, according to a new report by PayScale, an online compensation data website. Wages for food service and restaurant jobs dipped 0.6 percent, from the first three months of 2011 to the first three months of 2012. In contrast, U.S. wages in all industries rose 1.4 percent on average during that same stretch. (The legal sector also experienced wage declines.)

Restaurant and food service jobs are traditionally among some of the lowest paying positions in the U.S. economy, with the average wage in 2010 at just $18,130 per year, according to the Labor Department.

"The growth that is happening in this sector is not really encouraging for the economy," said Katie Bardaro, PayScale's lead economist. "A lot of people are going into [food services who] could have gone into higher-paying better jobs that they are more qualified for. But they can't find them."

Food service wages plunged more than 3 percent from mid-2008 to mid-2009, according to PayScale.

Americans have begun to dine out more often, a reason for the numerous openings in the food sector, but consumers are also eating less per meal, Bardaro said. That means restaurants want to hire more hands at minimum wage or part-time, she said.

The boom in low-wage restaurant jobs may provide much needed relief to some, but it's not necessarily good for the economy as a whole in the long run, she said. The skilled workers who are taking positions in restaurants to make ends meet are losing the skills that they developed through higher education or other jobs, Bardaro said. If that happens, the economy misses out on potential innovation and job creation.

"We have all of these college graduates who are trained in a particular field, and they cannot find jobs in their chosen field," Bardaro said. "Those fields are losing out on new fresh minds and new fresh ideas."

Look at the fluctuation in wages for food service jobs over the past 5 years here:

Related on HuffPost:

Comments

[MiddleMolly]

11:42 PM on 04/16/2012

The author of this article is mixing seasonally and non-seasonally adjusted jobs numbers. Yes, 188,000 jobs were added in "real" unadjusted numbers, but only 37,000 in seasonally adjusted numbers. March traditionally is a big hiring month for food service as companies get ready for spring break and for summer. As a result, the 188,000 jobs are adjusted down for the monthly report. This happens every spring.

And there were more than 120,000 jobs last month in "real" "raw" numbers. There were 811,000 "real" jobs. Again, March is a big hiring month, and "real" numbers are adjusted down.

March 2011, 169,000 jobs were added in food service, resulting in an "adjustment" down to 26,000 jobs. In "real" numbers, we added 925,000 jobs which adjusted down to +216,000.

In a recent peak year, 2007, 139,000 "real" jobs were added in this sector, adjusting down to +19,000. In "real" numbers, 939,000 jobs in total were added in March 2007, adjusting down to plus 180,000.

To simplify: In March 2012, 811,000 "real" (unadjusted) jobs were created. Of those 811,000 jobs, 188,000 were jobs in "food service and drinking places". In adjusted numbers, 120,000 jobs were created and 37,000 of them were in "food service and drinking places."

Take a closer look at the link above, or look here at table B-1, down on the third page. Note the headings "not seasonally adjusted" and "seasonally adjusted" at the top of the pages.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_04062012.pdf

[Vintage59]

10:24 AM on 04/09/2012

I make my living helping companies catch employees who are stealing from them.

Nothing's better for my business than wage declines. "Shrinkage" always increases. Karma doesn't always work in mysterious ways.

[mx5az]

07:29 PM on 04/08/2012

With thousands of McDonald's and thousands of photographers in the USA, why did Getty Images use the services of "Chinafotopress" for the headline photograph in this article?

Per internet resoures: "Chinafotopress, headquartered in Beijing, receives high-quality news and feature photos from more than 2,000 contract photographers throughout China and other datelines in Asia. The result is a record of events and people never before available to Western media."

Bring jobs back to America!

[pakjobs]

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[nothingchanges]

10:46 AM on 04/08/2012

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-26/bachmann-says-she-would-eliminate-minimum-wage-to-spur-growth.html

The Republican party wants lower income people to pay for the recovery, while giving more tax breaks to the very wealthy.

Look at Romney's tax plan. It would potentially lower HIS personal income tax by as much as 3 million dollars a year, but Raise taxes over 60% on those making $20,000 or less annually.

http://www.aarp.org/politics-society/government-elections/news-01-2012/us-romney-tax-plan.html

John F. Kennedy once said "The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all."

Yet in a recent poll it was determined that people who watch Fox news know less about current events than people who don't watch the news at all.

WAKE UP AMERICA!

It's later than you think.

Trickle down economics is nothing but a Ponzi scheme,

where 99% of us are paying to play it, while 1% reap all the benefits.

[ColoradoPete]

03:08 PM on 04/08/2012

A purely delusional talking point, at best. All your whining about the "1%", yet in 2009 (the last year tabulated by the IRS), the top 1% of all wage earners paid 37% of all personal Federal income taxes collected. Please note, that is NOT the rate each person paid, but it is the percentage of total receipts that the top 1% contributed.

Meanwhile, the bottom 50% of all wage earners (so we're only talking about people with jobs who had earnings) accounted for 1% of all personal Federal income taxes in 2009. So the bottom 50% of wage earners, plus all the millions of Obama unemployed people, only contributed 1% of all personal income taxes.

Now, tell me again who is paying their "fair share," as Obama whines? How can you claim the top 1% gets all the benefits?? I would argue, whatever benefits they get, they deserve based on the burden of income taxes they carry vs. the rest of wage earners............

Let's see what you've got...................

[herkyc130]

08:41 PM on 04/08/2012

and the point you are defending, what do you have, with all this abundant wealth going to corporations, and the rich, the corporate GOP politicians are doing good at destroying the middle class

[liberalmyers]

07:34 AM on 04/09/2012

Well considering that over 80% of the wealth accumulated over the past decade went to the top 1%,the bottom 99% should'nt have topay a dime.People in the bottom income brackets are barely surviving,let alone living.So if the top % income gained most if not all the benefits they need to pay for it all.That is how it once was in this country,and the middle class was thriving.

[robert horwitz]

09:07 AM on 04/08/2012

Three jobs that I have had that I would never do again unless I was starving to death and It's not just because of the wages. Working in a restaurant, selling shoes, and telemarketing. Being in a Coma would be more interesting.

[Tahut]

09:07 AM on 04/08/2012

As long as the business sector is making money and making campaign contributions, Congress isn't concerned ... businesses couldn't give donations if they weren't profitable so there's not much to the unemployment so-called problem.

TherRepublicans are the worst of the lot, but Democrats are too shy to stand up in fear if they did so they would be singled out by tea-bagger extremest and face a tough election with a good possibility of loosing.

It's going to take the economy to break down hard and for many people to be literally out on the street without unemployment checks, homes and close to starvation before Congress really begins to recognize there's trouble in River City.

[mashtoe]

11:12 AM on 04/08/2012

Give me a break. Democrats are more pro-corporation than Republicans.

[liberalmyers]

07:35 AM on 04/09/2012

They may do Corporate bidding,after all they are poiliticians,but "MORE PRO CORPORATION"? You've got to be joking.

[born 2b different]

09:06 AM on 04/09/2012

LMAO!

[ColoradoPete]

03:11 PM on 04/08/2012

Are you trying to argue that Dems are not in the pockets of Wall St. and business people for campaign contributions and the related promises and favors that go along with it?? Dems, and Obama in particular, are probably MORE entwined with Democratic business leaders, not less................

[stargazer13]

09:18 AM on 04/09/2012

I would have respected your post more if it would have had republican some where mentioned

republicans and blue dogs

in the fall fire them all

[libertymen]

07:05 AM on 04/08/2012

In Me. restaurants can hire staff at less than minimum for 6 months.
Called a training wage.
In effect the whole summer season is paid at a lesser rate.
Courtesy of our TEA PARTy GOVernor LEPLAGUE.

[pgrlights]

06:22 AM on 04/08/2012

In Michigan the republicans have shoved thru 88 new laws since taking control. All meant at putting handcuffs on workers and cementing the 'serf system' in place for years to come. Dems should be ashamed at sitting back and watching it happen.

[stephan67]

12:58 AM on 04/08/2012

They will say to you :A bad paid job ,is much better than unemployment . Look at Vietnam . The people there are working for 1 Dollar per day.

[mashtoe]

03:50 AM on 04/08/2012

Vietnam, another communist slave labor nation that we offshore jobs and technology to.

[jcko]

02:54 PM on 04/08/2012

How would Vietnamese people able to own cars and motorcycles if they are making $ 1.00 a day.

You made it up.

[stephan67]

03:40 PM on 04/08/2012

Just google ''List of minimum wage by country'' Wikipedia and find out the truth. Your accusation is ridiculous.

[OldTulsan]

11:06 PM on 04/07/2012

The late Sir James Goldsmith warned that globalization would open Western labor markets to competition with 4 billion poorer Asians

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PQrz8F0dBI
YouTube - 1. A prophetic interview with Sir James Goldsmith in 1994 Pt1

http://desip.igc.org/gatt01.html
Goldsmith on GATT: Part 1

"THE NEW UTOPIA: GATT AND GLOBAL FREE TRADE
by SIR JAMES GOLDSMITH

Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony

SENATE COMMERCE GATT IMPLEMENTA­TION
October 5, 1994

Global free trade has become a sacred principle of modern economic theory, a sort of generally accepted moral dogma. That is why it is so difficult to persuade politician ­s and economists to reassess its effects on a world
economy which is changing radically.

The ultimate objective of global free trade is to create a worldwide market in products, services, capital and labour. Its instrument to achieve this is GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

I believe
that GATT and the theories on which it is based are flawed. If it is implemented, it will impoverish and destabiliz­e the industrial­ized world while at the same time cruelly ravaging the third world..."

Other Western countries, such as Germany, took steps to protect their labor markets from global labor arbitrage.

But the U.S. decided its workers should live by the Iron Law of Wages:

"The doctrine or theory that wages tend toward a level sufficient only to maintain a subsistence standard of living. "

[mashtoe]

12:10 AM on 04/08/2012

Globalization supporters sound exactly like the old communist internationalist.

[spinotter11]

11:39 AM on 04/08/2012

Some examples, please.

[pappyvet]

11:01 PM on 04/07/2012

I think it was 80% of Americans at the time thought NAFTA would destroy the good paying jobs and simply send them overseas to cheap labor. Guess they were right.

[bc906]

10:51 PM on 04/07/2012

The Obama recovery in full stride, hows that change working for you

[mashtoe]

12:10 AM on 04/08/2012

Pocket change.

[donaldaq63]

04:18 AM on 04/08/2012

Well, Romney will fire you, so where's the hope in that?

[JoeBlough]

08:46 PM on 04/07/2012

As long as every job offered is filled, then Capitalism has achieved its goal. Charge or pay what the market will bear. Just basic Capitalism.

[pappyvet]

10:56 PM on 04/07/2012

yep, very basic indeed

[SonicUltimate]

01:07 PM on 04/09/2012

It is unsustainable when every job filled does not provide enough demand to drive a consumption based economy.

[mashtoe]

08:07 PM on 04/07/2012

And yet we continue to import foreign labor on work visas. Democrats tell us we must keep importing more and more foreigners. Why? Because it means lower wages and higher profits for a few.

[megwright]

08:48 PM on 04/07/2012

Are you seriously saying it's DEMOCRATS who want this? Watch C-Span when CEOs come to DC twice a year to beg them to raise the H1B quota again, and watch who seems in favor and who opposes raising the quota. There's almost or entirely 100% support from Republicans. Too many Democrats support it as well, but the opposition comes almost entirely from the Democratic side of the aisle.

Where in the world would you get the idea this is something Democrats favor?

[HitchHikerMel]

06:26 PM on 04/07/2012

Will work for money.
In lieu of money, will accept food, shelter, gas and childcare as remuneration (actually that may be more valuable than the money thing...)

[megwright]

08:49 PM on 04/07/2012

Before long, when high school grads march across the stage to received that rolled up piece of paper, they'll unroll it when they get offstage to find on it, printed neatly, "Will work for food."