US restaurant workforce, by the numbers
The staffing story in restaurants changed in the last two years, and a lot of what's still written about it describes 2022. Here is what the current data says, with sources.
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Staffing levels have recovered
The National Restaurant Association's hiring and staffing report put 22% of operators understaffed in 2025, against 78% a few years earlier, with the labour pool loosening to roughly 1.1 unemployed workers per job opening. The shortage narrative that dominated 2021 and 2022 no longer describes the market.
The gap moved from bodies to skills
The NRA's 2026 State of the Restaurant Industry report has nearly three quarters of operators planning to hire while expecting difficulty finding experienced managers and chefs. Experience is built, not recruited — which is why the constraint is now training rather than applicant volume.
Where understaffing persists it is expensive
NRA research found nearly half of understaffed restaurants could not operate at full capacity, 43% postponed expansion plans or modified their menus, 34% reduced hours, and one in five closed on days they would normally be open. Eight in ten short-staffed operators said it significantly limited their ability to grow.
Turnover is structural
Frontline turnover commonly runs at 75% a year or higher in US restaurants, with quick service higher still. Research by Tracey and Hinkin at Cornell put the fully-loaded cost of replacing an hourly hospitality worker near $5,864, across five categories including orientation, training and lost productivity.
The workforce is multilingual
Around a quarter of the US foodservice workforce is foreign-born, and 34.3% of cooks are Hispanic. In many kitchens Spanish is the working language behind the line — which makes English-only instruction a practical problem, not a theoretical one.
Scale
The NRA projects $1.55 trillion in restaurant and foodservice sales for 2026 and employment reaching 15.8 million, with more than 100,000 jobs added.
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