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Fewer Fancy Food Jobs

Mar 26, 2009
This article is part of a series called News & Trends.

It’s a good time to bring the kids to Friday’s, Applebee’s, or Chili’s. It’s also a decent time to be a shareholder in Panera Bread or to own some Buffalo Wild Wings. But not so much for a restaurant manager in a more pricey eatery.

The chart shows the percentage of companies adjusting their restaurant staffing levels, including reducing number of managers per unit, number of hourly employees per unit, or number of hours.

The data is from a People Report study of hundreds of restaurant-chain executives.

Fifty-one percent of companies say they’re reducing or planning to reduce the number of managers per unit, while only 34% are doing so with hourly employees. Also, 42% of the companies have reduced or plan to reduce the hours worked by their restaurant employees.

In addition to cutting staff, the study finds that most chains have either closed down a restaurant unit or slowed the pace of new openings.

Most of the job cuts and restaurant closings, the study says, “seem to be already in the past, which means we should see job losses in the industry starting to slow down.”

This article is part of a series called News & Trends.