October’s sizable employment additions included 164,000 positions in the Leisure and Hospitality economic sector that has struggled to recover from spring 2020’s huge downsizing. Thinking about how hospitality industry conditions influence what’s happening at the nation’s apartment communities, the impact shows up mostly in middle tier Class B and lower priced Class C apartments. That’s simply because hospitality sector jobs tend to offer only modest pay. Looking at individual metro results, hospitality sector job counts are essentially back to pre-pandemic levels in three of the country’s 50 largest metros: Kansas City, Salt Lake City and Providence. There’s another big block of metros, most in the Sun Belt and the Midwest, where we’re at least up to the 90% mark on full recovery for hospitality jobs. Here is what’s happening in a few metros where the hospitality sector forms an especially big portion of total jobs. San Antonio and Anaheim are in solid shape. More than 90% of previously lost positions already have been replaced. West Palm Beach and San Diego are doing reasonably well. The hospitality jobs recovery pace comes in at 83% to 84% in this pair of metros. Las Vegas, where the hospitality sector accounted for a nation-leading 28% of all jobs pre-pandemic, still has work to do. Only 78% of the lost positions are back so far. Orlando is among the markets with the slowest hospitality sector recovery so far, as just 73% of the pre-pandemic jobs have been replaced.
