The National Restaurant Association projects the foodservice industry will add 428,000 jobs this summer.
Restaurants are historically seen as being among the largest creators of summer jobs, ranking behind only the construction industry in terms of seasonal employment.
The projected summer job tally is a 4.6-percent increase over the industry’s March 2010 employment level, the NRA said.
“In these tough economic times, restaurants are playing an ever-more important role in their communities, creating jobs and economic opportunity for our nation,” said Dawn Sweeney, president and chief executive of the NRA.
The NRA said the states expected to add the most eating-and-drinking- place jobs during the summer are New York, 38,300; California, 30,400; Texas, 28,100; Massachusetts, 24,800; New Jersey, 24,600; Illinois, 19,900; Ohio, 19,800; and Michigan, 18,600.
The NRA also said states expected to register the largest proportional employment increase over the summer are Maine, 30.9 percent, and Alaska, 26.0 percent.
The NRA calculates that the foodservice industry employs nearly 13 million people, a number that is expected to rise by more than one million in the next decade.
Contact Paul Frumkin at [email protected].
