“Some of this increase is due to the increased tenure and experience of the current workforce in U.S. hotels,” said Taylor Beauchamp, chief product officer and co-founder of Hotel Effectiveness. “When hotels cut back on their staffing levels, they generally retained the most experienced, most highly paid people.”
According to data from more than 4,000 U.S. hotels, hotel workers hired within the past 30 days are receiving the same starting wages that they were in February, before the sudden downturn in the industry.
“I’m not surprised,” Chesapeake Hospitality President and CEO Chris Green said. “Our industry was likely underpaying our people before COVID-19, so we are probably lucky that wages are not a lot higher.”
Green attributed the stable wages to three factors: an increase in demand for “essential workers,” often at higher wages than many hotel jobs; a rise in new economy jobs such as food delivery and at Amazon distribution centers; and a lack of sophistication in how wage rates are set in the hotel industry.