{"schema_version": 1, "id": "st-george-ut-msa/restaurant-industry/2026-10", "product": "Labor Market Pulse", "metro": {"geography_id": 362, "label": "St. George, UT MSA", "slug": "st-george-ut-msa"}, "focus_area": {"key": "restaurant_industry", "slug": "restaurant-industry", "label": "Restaurant Industry"}, "period": "2026-10", "public_after": "2026-10-01", "frozen_at": "2026-11-03T07:11:05.445501+00:00", "headline": "St. George restaurant pay splits: managers up, crew down.", "headline_summary": "Assistant Restaurant Manager pay climbed to $43,485 in the St. George metro while Crew pay fell to $26,226, even as county unemployment held near 3.5% and job growth ran at 4% annually.", "key_indicators": [{"label": "Washington County unemployment", "value": "3.5%-3.6%", "context": "vs 4.1% U.S., 3.5% Utah statewide"}, {"label": "County job growth (annual)", "value": "4.0%", "context": "~93,566 jobs as of August 2026"}, {"label": "Assistant Manager pay shift", "value": "$43,485", "context": "Up significantly, above $39,211 U.S. median"}, {"label": "Crew pay shift", "value": "$26,226", "context": "Down moderately, below $30,066 U.S. median"}], "takeaways": [{"headline": "Management pay is pulling away from frontline wages locally.", "body": "Assistant Restaurant Manager advertised pay rose to a metro median of $43,485, a significant increase and now above the $39,211 national figure, while Crew pay fell to $26,226 \u2014 a gap that may signal operators prioritizing leadership retention over entry-level competitiveness in a 3.5% unemployment market."}, {"headline": "Catering Manager pay softened sharply against a thin market.", "body": "Metro median pay for Catering Manager dropped to $41,600, a significant decline, and now sits below the already-falling $50,076 national figure. Softening demand for this role may reflect banquet and event volume pressure, a dynamic distinct from the broader managerial trend given Assistant Manager and GM pay moved the opposite direction."}, {"headline": "BOH wage pressure looks structural.", "body": "BLS projects restaurant cook demand growing 12% through 2035 against 2% for waiters, and Utah's full-service segment remains below pre-2020 staffing levels despite overall hospitality employment running 15% above pre-pandemic levels. Line Cook pay sitting flat at $36,400 locally suggests the wage response hasn't caught up to the hiring difficulty operators report."}, {"headline": "Tipped-wage policy shift creates near-term cost flexibility.", "body": "The October 2026 federal withdrawal of the 80/20 rule lets Utah operators pay the $2.13 tipped rate for non-tip-producing side work without the former 20% cap, a change that could ease FOH labor cost pressure in slower shifts. Utah's unchanged $7.25 minimum wage and failed SB 179 mean this flexibility carries no near-term legislative risk through 2027."}], "local_conditions": "Washington County's economy kept adding jobs through August 2026 at a 4% annual clip, reaching roughly 93,566 positions, while the metro unemployment rate held near 3.5% to 3.6% \u2014 tighter than both Utah's 3.5% statewide rate and the national 4.1%. Tourism-driven seasonal demand, a construction and healthcare hiring boom, and a diversified employer base anchored by Intermountain Healthcare and Utah Tech University are pulling candidates away from restaurant roles even as job ads across the metro \u2014 a signal of hiring demand, with one ad often covering several openings \u2014 have climbed 55% since early 2020.", "implications": "Tight metro-wide labor supply is colliding with restaurant-specific retention math: national annual turnover near 80% and Utah's full-service segment still below 2020 staffing levels mean operators are competing for the same shrinking pool of entry-level and back-of-house talent as construction and healthcare employers offering comparable or higher starting wages. Metro Assistant Restaurant Manager pay is up significantly to $43,485 while Crew pay has drifted down to $26,226, suggesting operators are investing in management retention while leaving entry-level compensation exposed just as the federal 80/20 rule rollback reduces side-work pay protections for tipped staff. Consider evaluating whether Crew and Server pay structures can absorb continued BOH wage pressure \u2014 cooks are projected to grow 12% in demand through 2035 versus 2% for waiters \u2014 without creating a FOH-BOH compensation gap that accelerates turnover.", "looking_ahead": [{"category": "Worth watching", "body": "Washington County's 4% annual job growth is concentrated in healthcare, construction and tourism \u2014 sectors competing directly for the same entry-level labor pool restaurants draw from. Watch whether seasonal winter tourism staffing needs widen the gap between advertised Crew pay and what competing sectors offer."}, {"category": "Emerging pressure point", "body": "Metro Crew pay has moved down moderately while national Crew pay holds stable, a divergence worth tracking against Washington County's tight 3.5% unemployment rate. If local operators can't move this figure while labor stays scarce, expect turnover and open-shift coverage problems to intensify into the holiday season."}, {"category": "Policy to monitor", "body": "Utah's minimum wage remains fixed at $7.25 with no legislative path forward after SB 179's failure, giving operators multi-year cost predictability on the wage floor. The federal 80/20 rule withdrawal is new enough that compliance and pay-structure adjustments across tipped roles are still being worked out industry-wide."}, {"category": "Early indicator", "body": "Restaurant Manager/GM pay rose moderately to $58,967 locally, nearly matching the $59,724 national median \u2014 a signal management compensation is normalizing toward national levels faster than frontline pay. Track whether this convergence continues or whether it stalls as operators weigh labor-cost-to-revenue targets heading into 2027 budgeting."}], "roles": [{"role": "Assistant Restaurant Manager", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 34859.0, "metro_p50": 43484.8, "metro_p75": 49913.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "significant", "national_p50": 39211.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Catering Manager", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 38480.0, "metro_p50": 41600.0, "metro_p75": 47159.25, "metro_trend_direction": "down", "metro_trend_magnitude": "significant", "national_p50": 50076.0, "national_trend_direction": "down", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Crew", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 23920.0, "metro_p50": 26226.4, "metro_p75": 29120.0, "metro_trend_direction": "down", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 30066.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Line Cook", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 30948.0, "metro_p50": 36400.0, "metro_p75": 38211.0, "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": 48880.0, "metro_p50": 58967.0, "metro_p75": 60500.0, "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": 27188.25, "metro_p50": 32296.0, "metro_p75": 34320.0, "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": 28295.0, "metro_p50": 31720.0, "metro_p75": 33280.0, "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": "Utah Department of Workforce Services", "source_url": null, "statement": "Washington County employment grew 4% annually, reaching ~93,566 jobs by August 2026"}, {"source_name": "Utah Department of Workforce Services", "source_url": null, "statement": "Washington County seasonally adjusted unemployment rate at 3.5%-3.6%"}, {"source_name": "Bureau of Labor Statistics", "source_url": null, "statement": "Restaurant annual turnover near 80%, cooks projected to grow 12% vs 2% for waiters"}, {"source_name": "U.S. Department of Labor", "source_url": null, "statement": "DOL withdrew the 80/20 tipped wage rule in October 2026"}, {"source_name": "Utah State Legislature", "source_url": null, "statement": "Utah SB 179 minimum wage increase to $20/hour failed to pass"}, {"source_name": "Utah Department of Workforce Services", "source_url": null, "statement": "Utah full-service restaurant employment remains below 2020 levels"}], "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": "st-george-ut-msa/restaurant-industry/2026-10.html", "pdf": "st-george-ut-msa/restaurant-industry/2026-10.pdf"}, "published_at": "2026-11-03T08:30:59.012291+00:00", "report_html_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/st-george-ut-msa/restaurant-industry/2026-10.html", "report_pdf_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/st-george-ut-msa/restaurant-industry/2026-10.pdf"}