“Search interest in restaurant jobs is the lowest it has been in a decade”
What can search vs. demand tell us about the 2022 restaurant hiring market?
It’s no secret that it’s hard for employers to find workers right now. This is especially true for restaurant owners. We’ve heard about it all over the news ever since the pandemic started. Help Wanted signs are up in almost every establishment I drive by or drive through.
Are the any signs of this trend turning around? Are workers any more interested in finding restaurant jobs now that we’re getting used to being in a pandemic and restaurants have opened up more?
Let’s take a look at some of the data and see if we can’t come to some conclusions.
What kinds of data did we look at?
We took a look at the BLS data set for “Job Openings – Accommodation & Food Services.” It’s the closest thing we could get to something flat-out saying “restaurant job openings.” We took this data all the way back to 2011 to get a nice broad view of the trends (plus this was as far back as it went).
We also took a look at Google search interest data for the term “Restaurant Jobs” for the same time period.
Finally, because no data set would be complete without it, we’ll use our trusty CDC data when we zoom in on how this all looks through the COVID lens.
And now to the charts!
This isn’t going to take long for you see where this is going…
Job Openings – Accommodation & Food Services
The numbers here are in 1000s
The takeaways:
- The number of job openings in this category has clearly increased dramatically. This is certainly due to “separations” caused either by workers quitting or restaurants having to alter staffing due to COVID.
- If you’re running a job site, restaurant owners need you more than ever right now.
“Restaurant Jobs” Search Interest
The takeaways
- If you’re running a job site, search traffic to these jobs is getting increasingly difficult (and more expensive) to acquire.
- The data points are all relative to the time period with the highest level of interest. So if interest is at 33, it’s only one third as popular as it was during its peak interest.
Let’s zoom in on the COVID times
So what does all this mean?
Things aren’t looking like they’ll be getting any easier any time soon. Job openings are sky high, but search interest is lacking.
If you’re running SEO for a job board, you’re feeling this headwind right now and it doesn’t look like it’ll be calming down.
All that being said, I know that the folks running job sites are super creative, and the right kinds of talent (or increased budgets) can maximize the interest that’s out there. Restaurant owners need you now more than ever. Restaurants have been hit hard and money is tight. Workers are demanding higher wages. SEO is always necessary, but these days that traffic is harder to come by. It’s up to job sites to figure out how to deliver maximum value for their share of those hiring budgets. Good luck!