{"schema_version": 1, "id": "shreveport-bossier-city-la-msa/restaurant-industry/2026-10", "product": "Labor Market Pulse", "metro": {"geography_id": 478, "label": "Shreveport-Bossier City, LA MSA", "slug": "shreveport-bossier-city-la-msa"}, "focus_area": {"key": "restaurant_industry", "slug": "restaurant-industry", "label": "Restaurant Industry"}, "period": "2026-10", "public_after": "2026-10-01", "frozen_at": "2026-11-03T07:10:18.335958+00:00", "headline": "Shreveport hospitality jobs shrink as construction pulls labor away.", "headline_summary": "Leisure and hospitality employment fell 2.9% year-over-year to 20,000 in Shreveport-Bossier even as construction jobs grew 12.4%, while federal rollback of the 80/20 tipped-wage rule gives operators new room to manage front-of-house cost.", "key_indicators": [{"label": "Metro hospitality employment", "value": "20,000 jobs", "context": "Down 2.9% year-over-year"}, {"label": "Metro construction employment growth", "value": "+12.4% YoY", "context": "Pulling labor from hospitality sector"}, {"label": "Louisiana server base wage", "value": "$17.56/hr before tips", "context": "Tips add ~69% of hourly earnings"}, {"label": "National restaurant turnover rate", "value": "~80% annually", "context": "Up from 72% pre-pandemic"}], "takeaways": [{"headline": "Hospitality jobs are shrinking while the metro grows.", "body": "Leisure and hospitality employment dropped 2.9% year-over-year to 20,000 even as total nonfarm payrolls rose 0.3%, indicating restaurant labor is losing competitive position to construction and healthcare amid otherwise steady metro growth."}, {"headline": "Tipped-wage rule change quietly eases FOH cost pressure.", "body": "DOL's October withdrawal of the 80/20 rule applies in Louisiana immediately, letting operators pay $2.13 tipped wage for side work without the prior 20% threshold \u2014 a direct, near-term reduction in FOH wage obligation worth reflecting in labor cost modeling."}, {"headline": "Restaurant Manager pay climbing faster than the rest of the structure.", "body": "Metro Restaurant Manager/General Manager advertised pay rose to a median $56,341, a moderate increase, while Assistant Manager pay moved down to $31,034 \u2014 a widening gap that may reflect operators concentrating retention investment at the top of the unit instead of across the management bench."}, {"headline": "Crew pay is rising locally against a flat national trend.", "body": "Metro Crew advertised pay moved up moderately to $24,025 while the national median held stable, suggesting Shreveport-specific competition for entry-level labor \u2014 consistent with hospitality's shrinking share of a growing metro job market."}], "local_conditions": "Shreveport-Bossier leisure and hospitality employment fell 2.9% year-over-year to 20,000 jobs even as the broader metro economy grew 0.3%, with construction and healthcare absorbing labor that might otherwise flow to restaurants. Federal withdrawal of the 80/20 tipped-wage rule in October, which applies directly in Louisiana, now lets operators use tip credit toward side-work hours without the prior 20% cap, loosening a compliance constraint on front-of-house labor cost at the same time back-of-house hiring remains strained statewide.", "implications": "Shrinking hospitality headcount alongside stable metro job growth suggests restaurants are losing ground to construction and healthcare for entry-level and hourly labor, a dynamic that compounds the industry's 80% annual turnover and pushes labor cost per shift higher even where advertised wages hold flat. Relief on the tipped-wage side-work rule creates near-term room to manage FOH cost, but back-of-house roles \u2014 cooks and kitchen staff, where national projections show 12% growth in demand through 2035 versus 2% for servers \u2014 face no comparable offset. Consider reviewing whether current scheduling and cross-training practices are shifting cost burden appropriately between FOH and BOH given this diverging supply pressure.", "looking_ahead": [{"category": "Policy follow-through", "body": "Watch whether Louisiana operators adjust posted tipped-wage rates or side-work scheduling practices now that the 80/20 threshold no longer applies, since early movers may reset local FOH pay norms."}, {"category": "Emerging pressure point", "body": "Hospitality employment has fallen for multiple consecutive readings while construction (+12.4% year-over-year) and manufacturing (+5.1%) expand; continued softness would confirm restaurants are losing entry-level labor to higher-wage trades."}, {"category": "Worth watching", "body": "Assistant Restaurant Manager advertised pay has moved down locally even as General Manager pay rises \u2014 a widening spread worth tracking for its effect on management pipeline retention and promotion economics."}, {"category": "Early indicator", "body": "City of Shreveport's proposed acceleration of a 3% municipal pay raise, debated at the October 27 council meeting, signals public-sector wage competition that could pull from the same hourly labor pool restaurants depend on."}], "roles": [{"role": "Assistant Restaurant Manager", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 20212.0, "metro_p50": 31034.0, "metro_p75": 35037.0, "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": 35360.0, "metro_p50": 50154.0, "metro_p75": 56170.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 50076.0, "national_trend_direction": "down", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Crew", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 18926.5, "metro_p50": 24025.2, "metro_p75": 24960.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 30066.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Line Cook", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 24514.0, "metro_p50": 27938.0, "metro_p75": 29848.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 37421.4, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Restaurant Manager/General Manager", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 42500.0, "metro_p50": 56341.2, "metro_p75": 62500.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 59724.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Server", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 24440.0, "metro_p50": 26647.0, "metro_p75": 27953.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 35024.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Shift Manager", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 24319.0, "metro_p50": 27324.0, "metro_p75": 29446.0, "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": "U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics / BIZ Magazine", "source_url": null, "statement": "Shreveport leisure and hospitality employment down 2.9% year-over-year to 20,000"}, {"source_name": "U.S. Department of Labor", "source_url": null, "statement": "DOL withdrew the 80/20 tipped-wage rule in October 2026, applying in Louisiana"}, {"source_name": "Bureau of Labor Statistics", "source_url": null, "statement": "BLS projects cooks to grow 12% from 2025-2035 versus 2% for waiters"}, {"source_name": "Louisiana Restaurant Association / state labor data", "source_url": null, "statement": "Louisiana servers earn $17.56/hour base with tips at ~69% of earnings"}, {"source_name": "U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics", "source_url": null, "statement": "Construction employment in metro up 12.4% year-over-year to 10,000 jobs"}, {"source_name": "The Center Square", "source_url": null, "statement": "Shreveport city council debated accelerating 3% municipal employee raise"}], "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": "shreveport-bossier-city-la-msa/restaurant-industry/2026-10.html", "pdf": "shreveport-bossier-city-la-msa/restaurant-industry/2026-10.pdf"}, "published_at": "2026-11-03T08:30:35.134530+00:00", "report_html_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/shreveport-bossier-city-la-msa/restaurant-industry/2026-10.html", "report_pdf_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/shreveport-bossier-city-la-msa/restaurant-industry/2026-10.pdf"}