Restaurant hiring cools as summer traffic and teen labor pool shrink
Restaurant hiring is still active, but the teen labor pool is thinner: the NRA sees 450,000 summer jobs, while McDonald’s once planned to hire up to 375,000 U.S. workers.
The National Restaurant Association projected only 450,000 seasonal jobs for 2026, down from 469,000 last year and the third straight year below 500,000. Restaurant operators were still hiring for summer, even as uncertain business conditions and uneven customer traffic pointed to a softer pace and restaurants moved into their busiest stretch.
Teenagers and young adults remained the industry's prime labor pool, but that pool was less deep than it was last summer. Summer restaurant jobs are often filled by teenagers, college students, teachers and retirees, and older adults 65 and older were in the workforce at record levels in April 2026, at 12 million, up from 11.7 million a year earlier. International visitors expected for the FIFA World Cup in June and July could boost staffing in some host-city markets, although that lift might not show clearly in the headline number because the forecast measures average staffing from June through August.
In May 2025, McDonald's and its franchisees expected to hire up to 375,000 employees in U.S. restaurants that summer. The company planned to open 900 new U.S. restaurants by 2027, and its Archways to Opportunity program had received more than $240 million in investment since 2015, helping more than 90,000 crew members earn diplomas, receive tuition help, learn English or get career advising.
Eating and drinking places added 48,000 jobs in May 2026, the strongest monthly gain since January 2023, and employment stood nearly 153,000 jobs, or 1.2%, above February 2020 levels. Full-service restaurants were still 187,000 jobs, or 3.3%, below pre-pandemic employment in April 2026. The National Restaurant Association projected the biggest proportional summer gains in Maine, Alaska, Rhode Island, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and New Jersey, with the largest absolute gains in New York, California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, Texas, Michigan and North Carolina.
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