{"schema_version": 1, "id": "dayton-oh-msa/restaurant-industry/2026-10", "product": "Labor Market Pulse", "metro": {"geography_id": 158, "label": "Dayton, OH MSA", "slug": "dayton-oh-msa"}, "focus_area": {"key": "restaurant_industry", "slug": "restaurant-industry", "label": "Restaurant Industry"}, "period": "2026-10", "public_after": "2026-10-01", "frozen_at": "2026-11-03T06:28:18.549745+00:00", "headline": "Dayton restaurant pay splits: servers gain, cooks fall behind nation.", "headline_summary": "Dayton Line Cook pay sits at $32,240, trailing the $37,421 national median by over $5,000, while Server pay is the only metro role moving up this month.", "key_indicators": [{"label": "Dayton metro unemployment", "value": "3.7%", "context": "vs 4.1% national, 3.4% Ohio statewide"}, {"label": "Line Cook pay gap vs national", "value": "-$5,181", "context": "$32,240 metro vs $37,421 national median"}, {"label": "Metro job change, August 2026", "value": "-1,000 jobs", "context": "Reversed July's +700 gain; 3rd-weakest month in 5 yrs"}, {"label": "Hospitality employment growth", "value": "+3.2% YoY", "context": "Among metro's top-growing sectors"}], "takeaways": [{"headline": "Line cook pay lags the nation by 14% even as demand accelerates.", "body": "Metro Line Cook median advertised pay sits at $32,240 against a $37,421 national figure, a gap that widens the retention risk given BLS's 12% projected growth for cook occupations through 2035. Operators anchoring kitchen pay to local history instead of national demand trends may be underpricing a role that's becoming structurally harder to fill."}, {"headline": "Server pay is rising while most other roles sit flat.", "body": "Server advertised pay moved up at moderate magnitude this month, the only front-of-house or back-of-house role in the metro showing upward movement, while Assistant Manager and Line Cook pay actually declined. The divergence suggests operators are protecting tipped-role competitiveness first, possibly at the expense of management and kitchen pipelines."}, {"headline": "Elimination of the 80/20 rule reshapes side-work cost math.", "body": "DOL's October withdrawal of the 80/20 tip-credit threshold lets Ohio operators pay the $5.50 tipped wage for cleaning and stocking duties without the former 20% cap, reducing direct wage exposure during slow shifts. This creates near-term labor cost relief for FOH scheduling but requires updated time-tracking practices to stay audit-ready under Ohio's $30-tip threshold rule."}, {"headline": "Hospitality growth outpaces a metro economy showing cracks.", "body": "Leisure and hospitality's 3.2% year-over-year growth rate exceeds Dayton's overall employment trend, which just logged its third-weakest month in five years with an August loss of 1,000 jobs. Restaurant hiring demand appears resilient even as broader metro momentum softens, a signal worth testing against actual applicant flow before assuming continued tailwinds."}], "local_conditions": "Dayton's metro economy crossed 400,000 nonfarm jobs in June 2026 for the first time in two decades, but August brought a 1,000-job pullback that reversed July's gains, signaling the expansion may be losing steam even as unemployment held at a low 3.7%. Leisure and hospitality posted 3.2% year-over-year growth, among the metro's strongest sectors, suggesting restaurant hiring demand has outpaced the broader labor market's cooling trajectory.", "implications": "Dayton's tight 3.7% unemployment rate, below both the Ohio (3.4% in September, slightly higher trend) and national (4.1%) figures, means restaurant operators are competing for workers against a labor market still adding jobs faster than the national breakeven pace, keeping both front-of-house and back-of-house recruiting difficult. Metro advertised pay for Line Cooks ($32,240) trails the national median by more than $5,000 while Server pay has moved up locally, suggesting operators are reallocating compensation budget toward tipped front-of-house roles while leaving the harder-to-fill back-of-house positions BLS projects will grow fastest nationally underfunded. Consider evaluating whether current line cook pay reflects the 12% national growth projection for cook occupations, or whether the metro's wage gap against national rates is quietly feeding turnover in kitchen roles.", "looking_ahead": [{"category": "Expected", "body": "Ohio's constitutionally mandated CPI-indexed wage adjustment will push 2027 rates to $11.40 non-tipped and $5.70 tipped, a known cost increase operators can model now into 2027 labor budgets ahead of time."}, {"category": "Worth watching", "body": "Dayton's August job loss followed a strong July; a second consecutive negative month in the next release would suggest the metro's hiring momentum is turning, which could ease restaurant candidate scarcity for the first time in over a year."}, {"category": "Emerging pressure point", "body": "Federal proposals targeting a $20 minimum wage by 2030 and elimination of the tip-credit system remain early-stage, but Secretary Sonderling's confirmation gives wage-and-hour policy a steady hand worth monitoring for signals on tip-credit rule changes that would hit Ohio's $5.50 tipped floor directly."}, {"category": "Early indicator", "body": "Watch whether the metro's food and hospitality WARN activity, which logged 4 notices and 690 affected workers statewide this year, shows any Dayton-specific concentration as a leading signal of franchise or multi-unit operator distress."}], "roles": [{"role": "Assistant Restaurant Manager", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 27006.0, "metro_p50": 35936.0, "metro_p75": 39513.0, "metro_trend_direction": "down", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 39211.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Catering Manager", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 36156.0, "metro_p50": 46800.0, "metro_p75": 54080.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 50076.0, "national_trend_direction": "down", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Crew", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 24855.0, "metro_p50": 29120.0, "metro_p75": 31200.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 30066.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Line Cook", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 30095.5, "metro_p50": 32240.0, "metro_p75": 34320.0, "metro_trend_direction": "down", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 37421.4, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Restaurant Manager/General Manager", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 46591.0, "metro_p50": 56000.0, "metro_p75": 62433.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 59724.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Server", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 29434.0, "metro_p50": 34112.0, "metro_p75": 34320.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 35024.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Shift Manager", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 28080.0, "metro_p50": 31545.0, "metro_p75": 33252.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 33024.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}], "industry_snapshot": [], "citations": [{"source_name": "Dayton Daily News", "source_url": null, "statement": "Dayton metro crossed 400,000 nonfarm jobs in June 2026, first time in two decades"}, {"source_name": "USA Facts", "source_url": null, "statement": "Dayton metro lost 1,000 jobs in August 2026 after July gain"}, {"source_name": "Bureau of Labor Statistics", "source_url": null, "statement": "BLS projects cooks to grow 12% 2025-2035 vs 2% for waiters"}, {"source_name": "U.S. Department of Labor", "source_url": null, "statement": "DOL withdrew the 80/20 tip-credit rule in October 2026"}, {"source_name": "Bureau of Labor Statistics", "source_url": null, "statement": "Dayton metro unemployment rate at 3.7% in August 2026"}, {"source_name": "Ohio Department of Commerce", "source_url": null, "statement": "Ohio 2027 minimum wage rises to $11.40 non-tipped/$5.70 tipped via CPI indexing"}], "methodology": "Advertised pay from active employer job postings, not survey data. WageScape's median is calibrated to correct for spurious low-value postings: distribution analysis shows roughly the lowest 10% of raw values are erroneous entries, so the reported median is the 60th percentile of raw advertised pay.", "edition_label": "November 2026", "files": {"html": "dayton-oh-msa/restaurant-industry/2026-10.html", "pdf": "dayton-oh-msa/restaurant-industry/2026-10.pdf"}, "published_at": "2026-11-03T08:20:50.843311+00:00", "report_html_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/dayton-oh-msa/restaurant-industry/2026-10.html", "report_pdf_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/dayton-oh-msa/restaurant-industry/2026-10.pdf"}