Since the job boom in the catering industry is “behind us,” slower wage growth is expected in 2024
One of the biggest factors driving the post-pandemic job market boom is the slowdown.
New data from ADP released Wednesday showed that 103,000 private payroll jobs were added in the U.S., below economists’ expectations of 110,000 job gains. One of the biggest lagging sectors in the labor market turned out to be leisure and hospitality, once an industry that couldn’t find enough workers during the heat of the pandemic. The sector cut 7,000 jobs in November.
“Restaurants and hotels were the biggest job creators during the post-pandemic recovery,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP. “But that recovery is behind us, and the return to trend in leisure and hospitality suggests that the economy as a whole will see more moderate hiring and wage growth in 2024.”
Wednesday’s data is consistent with other signs that the labor market is normalizing after the pandemic. On Tuesday, the latest JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) report released on Tuesday found that the ratio of job vacancies to the number of unemployed fell to 1.34, the lowest level since August 2021. The unemployment rate is The number of employees has increased over the last year, rising from its lowest point in several decades, and employees have not quit their jobs at the same pace as the “quiet quitting” trend in 2021.
That could be partly because they aren’t rewarded as much for leaving. Additional data from ADP shows that annual wage growth for workers who change jobs fell to 8.3% in November, the slowest pace of growth since June 2021. Meanwhile, workers who kept the same job saw their wages rise last month of 5.6%, the lowest since September 2021. The reward for changing jobs is now lower than it has been in three years. ADP has been tracking the data point.
