{"schema_version": 1, "id": "warner-robins-ga-msa/restaurant-industry/2026-10", "product": "Labor Market Pulse", "metro": {"geography_id": 518, "label": "Warner Robins, GA MSA", "slug": "warner-robins-ga-msa"}, "focus_area": {"key": "restaurant_industry", "slug": "restaurant-industry", "label": "Restaurant Industry"}, "period": "2026-10", "public_after": "2026-10-01", "frozen_at": "2026-11-03T07:17:44.167478+00:00", "headline": "Warner Robins restaurant pay splits: management falls, frontline freezes.", "headline_summary": "Restaurant Manager pay fell significantly to a $50,000 metro median against $59,724 nationally, while Crew and Server pay held flat despite metro unemployment near 3.2%.", "key_indicators": [{"label": "Metro unemployment rate", "value": "3.2%", "context": "Aug 2026, vs 4.1% national"}, {"label": "Metro nonfarm employment change", "value": "-2.5%", "context": "Year-over-year, despite tight unemployment"}, {"label": "Restaurant Manager/GM pay trend", "value": "$50,000 median", "context": "Down significantly vs $59,724 national"}, {"label": "Government share of metro employment", "value": "33.2%", "context": "vs 10.3% national, Robins AFB-anchored"}], "takeaways": [{"headline": "Management pay is absorbing the local cost squeeze.", "body": "Restaurant Manager/GM advertised pay fell significantly to a $50,000 metro median against $59,724 nationally, while Shift Manager pay dropped moderately to $28,787. Operators appear to be managing labor-cost-to-revenue ratios by holding the line on supervisory compensation even as frontline hourly roles stay flat."}, {"headline": "Frontline wages look frozen in a tight market.", "body": "Crew, Line Cook, and Server pay all registered stable with no meaningful movement month over month, consistent with a metro where unemployment near 3.2% should pressure wages upward but a contracting nonfarm base is capping employer urgency. Flat pay in a tight labor market may signal operators relying on non-wage levers \u2014 scheduling, tip pooling structure, or the 80/20 rule rollback \u2014 to manage frontline costs."}, {"headline": "Catering Manager is the one role moving against the grain.", "body": "Catering Manager pay rose to a $52,737 metro median, moderate growth that outpaces a declining $50,076 national figure and sits well above local GM pay. Worth watching whether this reflects demand for off-premise and event revenue growth in a metro anchored by a large institutional base, or a smaller sample inflating the signal."}, {"headline": "Back-of-house recruiting difficulty is a national trend with local teeth.", "body": "BLS projects cook employment to grow 12% through 2035 versus 2% for servers, and Georgia kitchen staff command $18-28/hr against stable Line Cook advertised pay of $28,493 locally. Line Cook pay sitting below the FOH Server median of $28,824 despite higher skill and scarcity signals may warrant a fresh look at role-level pay equity between FOH and BOH."}], "local_conditions": "Warner Robins metro unemployment held near 3.2% in August 2026 while total nonfarm employment contracted 2.5% year-over-year, a combination that reflects a labor force too tight for the volume of workers employers need. Retail trade employment grew 3.2% even as government payrolls fell 6.6%, signaling that consumer-facing sectors including food service are competing for a shrinking pool of available workers against a backdrop of Robins AFB's 24,500-worker anchor presence.", "implications": "Tight local labor supply alongside contracting nonfarm employment means restaurant operators in this metro are competing against a shrinking jobs market, which typically concentrates wage pressure on the frontline roles hardest to backfill without lifting pay broadly. Georgia's unchanged $7.25 minimum and the federal 80/20 rule repeal reduce statutory wage floor pressure, but local Restaurant Manager pay down significantly and Shift Manager pay down moderately suggest operators are managing labor cost as a share of revenue by compressing management tiers while holding frontline hourly rates steady. Consider evaluating whether management compression is creating a retention gap just below the GM level, where remaining shift leads absorb added scope without corresponding pay movement.", "looking_ahead": [{"category": "Potential inflection point", "body": "Nonfarm employment in the metro is contracting 2.5% year-over-year even as unemployment stays near historic lows; watch whether restaurant employment follows government's 6.6% decline or tracks retail's 3.2% gain over the next two reporting cycles."}, {"category": "Policy shift to monitor", "body": "DOL's October withdrawal of the 80/20 tipped-wage rule gives Georgia operators more room to use tip credit for side work without new tracking burdens \u2014 expect early signals in how operators restructure FOH scheduling and job descriptions over the next 60 days."}, {"category": "Early indicator", "body": "Catering Manager pay movement against a declining national trend is worth tracking for a second month to confirm whether it reflects a durable local demand shift tied to institutional and event business near Robins AFB, or statistical noise in a thin role category."}, {"category": "Worth watching", "body": "Management-tier pay compression at GM and Shift Manager levels, if sustained, typically precedes turnover spikes in supervisory ranks; watch separation and time-to-fill signals for management postings relative to frontline roles."}], "roles": [{"role": "Assistant Restaurant Manager", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 27385.0, "metro_p50": 37440.0, "metro_p75": 40183.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 39211.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Catering Manager", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 39532.75, "metro_p50": 52737.0, "metro_p75": 56706.0, "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": 22876.0, "metro_p50": 25460.0, "metro_p75": 26000.0, "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": 25855.75, "metro_p50": 28493.0, "metro_p75": 30835.0, "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": 43651.0, "metro_p50": 50000.0, "metro_p75": 57000.0, "metro_trend_direction": "down", "metro_trend_magnitude": "significant", "national_p50": 59724.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Server", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 25494.0, "metro_p50": 28824.2, "metro_p75": 32429.0, "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": 24960.75, "metro_p50": 28787.0, "metro_p75": 29120.0, "metro_trend_direction": "down", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 33024.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}], "industry_snapshot": [], "citations": [{"source_name": "Bureau of Labor Statistics / Local Area Unemployment Statistics", "source_url": null, "statement": "Warner Robins MSA unemployment rate and nonfarm employment contraction"}, {"source_name": "Bureau of Labor Statistics", "source_url": null, "statement": "Retail trade and government employment trends in metro"}, {"source_name": "U.S. Department of Labor", "source_url": null, "statement": "DOL withdrawal of 80/20 tipped wage rule in October 2026"}, {"source_name": "Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook", "source_url": null, "statement": "BLS projected growth rate for cooks vs waiters through 2035"}, {"source_name": "Georgia Department of Labor", "source_url": null, "statement": "Robins AFB and top employer figures for Warner Robins metro"}, {"source_name": "Georgia Restaurant Association", "source_url": null, "statement": "Georgia restaurant labor percentage and fine dining cost benchmarks"}], "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": "warner-robins-ga-msa/restaurant-industry/2026-10.html", "pdf": "warner-robins-ga-msa/restaurant-industry/2026-10.pdf"}, "published_at": "2026-11-03T08:32:06.979397+00:00", "report_html_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/warner-robins-ga-msa/restaurant-industry/2026-10.html", "report_pdf_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/warner-robins-ga-msa/restaurant-industry/2026-10.pdf"}