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Survey: Link between economy, lower
turnover rates In a nationwide study of 78 restaurant companies, representing 683,000 employees and more than 45,000 managers, People Report, based here, found that turnover had fallen for both hourly and managerial staff over a two-year period.
The 2003
Survey of Unit Level Employment Practices stated that the average annual
turnover among hourly employees was 113 percent in 2002, compared with 136
percent in 2000. For managers the turnover fell to 33 percent, from 37
percent two years earlier. People
Report, which tracks employment practices for member companies, conducts a
national survey that includes nonmember companies every other year. The
larger survey is done to put a national perspective on industry trends, said
Joni Doolin, chief executive of the firm. "The
last time this was done, in 2001, we were at the end of the economic
boom," Doolin said. "I don't think [the
lower turnover is] related to improved employment practices, but there is
definitely a correlation to what's going on in the economy." The People
Report results mirror a report last fall by the Council of Hotel and
Restaurant Trainers that also spotted lower turnover among hourly workers and
store managers. People are staying longer in their jobs than they did during
the economic boom of the late 1990s, when the unemployment rate was lower and
the industry had an acute demand for labor, observers said. The average
annual unemployment rate for the country was 4.0 in 2000 and up to 5.8
percent in 2002, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The People
Report survey also confirms the often-anecdotal theory that the higher the
check average at a restaurant, the higher the retention at the restaurant as
well, Doolin said. "The
jobs are pretty darn good, even at the hourly level, and people are not
leaving them," she said. The survey
measured trends in several employment practices, from salary to workplace
safety to community involvement to recruiting practices, said Theresa Siriani, president of People Report. Compensation
and benefits have remained relatively flat, given the rising costs of health
care. Instead, operators are adding other benefits that are less costly, such
as tuition assistance, additional vacation and the use of credit unions, she
said. When it comes
to recruitment, restaurants are seeing more applicants walk through the door,
asking for jobs, rather than answering ads on the Internet or in newspapers,
the report found. "Walk-ins
were 39 percent of hires; that's up from 33 percent in 2000," Doolin said. |
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