{"schema_version": 1, "id": "ogden-clearfield-ut-msa/restaurant-industry/2026-08", "product": "Labor Market Pulse", "metro": {"geography_id": 7, "label": "Ogden-Clearfield, UT MSA", "slug": "ogden-clearfield-ut-msa"}, "focus_area": {"key": "restaurant_industry", "slug": "restaurant-industry", "label": "Restaurant Industry"}, "period": "2026-08", "public_after": "2026-08-01", "frozen_at": "2026-10-09T16:30:33.022932+00:00", "headline": "Ogden kitchens compete with Hill AFB wages, not rival restaurants.", "headline_summary": "Weber County wages rose 4.4% year-over-year while metro Line Cook pay sits at $33,280 against a $36,702 national median, and Crew pay slipped to $27,840 even as unemployment holds near 3.3%.", "key_indicators": [{"label": "Ogden-Clearfield unemployment rate", "value": "3.3%", "context": "vs 4.1% national, 3.5% Utah statewide"}, {"label": "Weber County wage growth", "value": "4.4%", "context": "Q4 2025 YoY, above national wage trend"}, {"label": "National restaurant payroll growth", "value": "+59,200 jobs", "context": "Largest one-month gain since Jan 2023"}, {"label": "Utah state minimum wage", "value": "$7.25/hr", "context": "Unchanged since 2009; SB 179 failed in 2026"}], "takeaways": [{"headline": "Kitchen wages are competing with Hill Air Force Base, not just other restaurants.", "body": "Weber County's 4.4% Q4 wage growth reflects defense and manufacturing hiring, and metro Line Cook pay at $33,280 sits meaningfully below the $36,702 national median. Back-of-house retention risk looks structural, not seasonal, in a metro with a 3.3% unemployment floor."}, {"headline": "Crew pay is softening even as the local labor market tightens.", "body": "Metro Crew advertised pay is down moderately to $27,840, trailing the stable $29,791 national figure, an unusual divergence given Ogden's sub-4% unemployment. This may suggest QSR and casual operators are pulling back on entry-level pay premiums as the post-pandemic hiring rebound cools at the margins, per DWS commentary on thinning secondary-shift demand."}, {"headline": "Utah's frozen minimum wage buys operators time, not relief.", "body": "State law preempting local minimum wage increases (SB 179 failed to pass in 2026) means base-wage cost pressure in Ogden will come from market competition, not statute, unlike Florida's move to $15.00 in September. Labor cost management now depends on productivity and technology investment rather than anticipating a legislated wage floor."}, {"headline": "Manager pay signals where retention dollars are actually going.", "body": "Restaurant Manager/General Manager pay holds stable at $60,500 locally while the national figure softens, and Assistant Manager pay is up moderately to $39,520 against a declining national median. Ogden operators appear to be protecting management-tier compensation even as entry-level hourly pay drifts down \u2014 a bet on retaining supervisory continuity over hourly headcount."}], "local_conditions": "Ogden-Clearfield's labor market remains structurally tight, with metro unemployment near 3.3% against a national 4.1%, while Weber County wages climbed 4.4% year-over-year in Q4 2025 \u2014 pressure originating from aerospace and defense hiring at Hill Air Force Base rather than restaurant-specific demand. National restaurant payrolls posted their largest one-month gain since January 2023 in August, yet operators report softer traffic, signaling a market where hiring outpaces demand and retention economics increasingly outweigh recruiting spend.", "implications": "Ogden operators compete for hourly labor against a defense and manufacturing base that keeps county-level wages rising even as restaurant traffic softens, meaning labor cost as a share of revenue is being driven more by market tightness than by covers or ticket growth. Utah's frozen $7.25 state minimum wage removes near-term policy risk on base pay, but tipped-wage compression at $2.13 plus tips widens the front-of-house/back-of-house pay gap and puts pressure on kitchen retention specifically. Consider reviewing back-of-house base pay against Weber County's broader wage trend rather than restaurant-sector averages alone, since line cooks and kitchen staff are the group most exposed to competition from adjacent industries.", "looking_ahead": [{"category": "Worth watching", "body": "Utah DWS's September 18 release will bring the first full August 2026 metro-level dataset; watch whether Ogden's unemployment rate holds near 3.3% or ticks toward the statewide 3.5%, which would tighten the hourly labor pool further heading into Q4 hiring."}, {"category": "Emerging pressure point", "body": "National job openings in food services fell 27% from January to July, and quits are down sharply \u2014 if that softening reaches Ogden's leisure and hospitality sector, expect reduced turnover costs but also a smaller pool of experienced front-of-house candidates for holiday staffing."}, {"category": "Potential inflection point", "body": "Crew and entry-level pay is already declining locally while defense-sector wages climb; watch whether this gap widens enough to accelerate turnover among younger or first-time workers, a group DWS economist Ben Crabb flagged as facing a more competitive, thinner hiring landscape."}, {"category": "Expected", "body": "Seasonal Q4 staffing ramps will test whether Ogden operators lean on tipped-wage flexibility for front-of-house coverage or raise back-of-house base pay to compete with manufacturing and aerospace employers filling similar shift patterns."}], "roles": [{"role": "Assistant Restaurant Manager", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 28312.0, "metro_p50": 39520.0, "metro_p75": 41600.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 39000.0, "national_trend_direction": "down", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Catering Manager", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 38480.0, "metro_p50": 39520.0, "metro_p75": 48830.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 51585.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Crew", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 23360.0, "metro_p50": 27840.0, "metro_p75": 30160.0, "metro_trend_direction": "down", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 29791.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Line Cook", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 29480.5, "metro_p50": 33280.0, "metro_p75": 37413.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 36702.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Restaurant Manager/General Manager", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 49938.0, "metro_p50": 60500.0, "metro_p75": 62500.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 59762.0, "national_trend_direction": "down", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Server", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 27432.0, "metro_p50": 30914.8, "metro_p75": 34732.75, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 34915.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Shift Manager", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 27600.0, "metro_p50": 31200.0, "metro_p75": 33280.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 32649.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}], "industry_snapshot": [], "citations": [], "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": "September 2026", "files": {"html": "ogden-clearfield-ut-msa/restaurant-industry/2026-08.html", "pdf": "ogden-clearfield-ut-msa/restaurant-industry/2026-08.pdf"}, "published_at": "2026-10-09T16:35:14.197366+00:00", "report_html_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/ogden-clearfield-ut-msa/restaurant-industry/2026-08.html", "report_pdf_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/ogden-clearfield-ut-msa/restaurant-industry/2026-08.pdf"}