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Restaurants to add 500K jobs this summer

Restaurants are expected to add 522,000 jobs this summer season, according to the NRA.

June 9, 2015

Restaurants are expected to add 522,000 jobs this summer season, the NRA announced in a press release. If projections come through, the season will be the third consecutive year for restaurants to add at least 500,000 jobs during the summer season.

"Summer is the busiest season for restaurants in most parts of the country, and the stronger business leads to additional employment opportunities at all levels of a restaurant operation," Bruce Grindy, chief economist for the National Restaurant Association, said in a statement. "In many states with tourism-driven economies, restaurants satisfy both travelers' cravings for food, as well as job-seekers' hunger for employment."

"Driven by an improving economy, dampened gas prices and consumers' elevated levels of pent-up demand for restaurants, 2015 will represent the third consecutive summer with a gain of at least a half-million restaurant jobs," Grindy added. "Eating and drinking places added a record 551,200 summer jobs during the 2013 summer season, followed by 535,900 jobs during the 2014 season."

The states expected to add the majority of jobs at eating and drinking places during the 2015 summer season are New York (46,600), California (44,400), Massachusetts (29,200), Texas (26,500), New Jersey (24,400), Ohio (23,500), Illinois (20,900) and Michigan (20,800). 

The states predicted to register the largest proportion of employment increases during the 2015 summer season are Maine (33.5 percent increase), Alaska (20.2 percent increase), Delaware (16.5 percent increase), New Hampshire (15.2 percent increase) and Rhode Island (15.2 percent increase).

Arizona and Florida, states that experience peak tourism outside the summer months, are the only states projected to register declines in eating-and-drinking-place employment.