Research
March 11, 2025

Restaurant Job Openings

Quits in Accommodation and Food Services Hold Steady as Labor Turnover Slows

The accommodation and food services sector reported 941,000 job openings in January, a slight decline from a revised 963,000 in December. Despite this dip, job openings have generally trended upward since hitting a post-pandemic low of 732,000 in May. While the broader labor market has cooled in recent years, job postings in the sector remain above the pre-pandemic monthly average of 835,000 (2017-2019), gradually stabilizing from post-pandemic highs. For comparison, job openings in the sector averaged 1,410,000 in 2022, 1,095,000 in 2023, and 889,000 in 2024.

In January, businesses in the sector hired 748,000 workers, marking a seven-month low. Hiring activity peaked at 1,059,000 in May 2022. Meanwhile, total separations rose slightly to 759,000 from 741,000 in December, resulting in a net gain of just 7,000 workers for the month—down significantly from December’s 56,000.


Quits in the accommodation and food services sector remained largely unchanged, edging down from 543,000 in December to 540,000 in January. This stability underscores a continued slowdown in labor turnover, a stark contrast to the volatility seen during the “Great Resignation.” For context, quits in the sector stood at 705,000 a year ago and remain below the pre-pandemic average of 633,000 recorded from 2017 to 2019.

Meanwhile, across all nonfarm payrolls, quits rose to a six-month high of 3.27 million in January, up from 3.10 million in December. Despite this increase, quits in the broader U.S. economy remained slightly below the pre-pandemic average of 3.34 million, suggesting a gradual return to more typical labor market trends.



In the broader U.S. economy, nonfarm business job openings increased from 7.51 million in December to 7.74 million in January. With 6.85 million unemployed individuals in January, this translates to approximately 88.5 unemployed workers for every 100 job openings.

While job openings continue to outnumber active job seekers by 891,000, the gap has narrowed as the labor market has cooled. The ratio of job openings to unemployed individuals was nearly 2-to-1 in December 2022, with just 51.8 unemployed workers per 100 job openings and a surplus of more than 5.3 million job openings compared to available job seekers.