Hospitality-industry hiring is on the rise

Katie Nelson, general manager at Bar Louie in Chicago’s River North neighborhood, recently called the chain’s headquarters with good news: Business is booming. That bolstered her plea for money to hire 20 employees.

“We’re hiring a ton right now,” Nelson said on a Friday evening as her outdoor patio filled with diners sipping Goose Island Matilda pale ale and munching flatbread pizzas. “Whenever we get new people trained, we still need more.”

Bar Louie’s newest dishwashers, cooks and servers owe their jobs to U.S. consumers who are spending more on dining, amusement parks and other close-to-home activities.

Fresh crews streaming into restaurants such as Red Robin Gourmet Burgers and Domino’s Pizza lifted the number of leisure and hospitality jobs to a record 14.2 million in June. Hiring is 80 percent stronger this year than in 2012. The sector now accounts for about 10.5 percent of the nation’s workforce, also a record since the government started tracking the jobs in 1939.

“We’re definitely seeing that people are coming out more frequently, and we’re seeing a growth in transactions,” said Charlie Morrison, chief executive officer of Richardson, Texas-based Wingstop Restaurants, which this year is adding about 1,000 workers and 70 locations. “This is our best year since the recession.”

The looser spending that is lubricating date-night bar tabs and higher traffic at casual-dining restaurants also is paying off for investors. This year, share prices have risen 28 percent at Starbucks, 29 percent at Dunkin’ Brands and 52 percent at Sonic, all far exceeding the 19 percent advance in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

Sales at restaurants and bars will reach a record $461.3 billion this year, a 3.8 percent gain from 2012, the National Restaurant Association in Washington estimates.

Even with the U.S. unemployment rate stuck above 7 percent for a 55th straight month in June, the economy has regained 6 million jobs in recent years. That’s 6 million more people who can afford to go out, said Michael Montgomery, U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Mass.