About the People Report Workforce Index

The People Report Workforce Index (WFI) is a quarterly comparison of leading employment measures. This index consists of five components:

• Employment Levels
  The increase/decrease in both management and hourly headcount.
• Recruiting Difficulty
  The difficulty to recruit both management & hourly positions.
• Job Vacancies
  Increase/decrease of current open positions, both management & hourly.
• Employment Expectations
  A leading indicator, the excepted increase/decrease of the current head count, both management and hourly.
• Turnover
  A lagging indicator, the turnover component is data collected from People Report members of 100+ leading chain restaurant companies for the 12 months preceding the quarter the index is surveyed for, this includes turnover rates for managers and hourly employees.

The numbers corresponding to each component are in a range of value from a low of 0 to a high of 100. Values over 50 indicate increased levels of that component (employment levels, recruiting difficulty, vacancies, employment expectations, or turnover). Conversely values below 50 indicate decreased levels of that particular component.

The strength of each value is measured by its distance from 50. For example, an "Employment Level "component value of 84.6, indicates a strong growth in employment levels in Q2 06 as compared to Q1 06. Conversely, if "Turnover" has a value of 50 it indicates there has been no significant change in turnover.

The overall People Report Workforce Index value is a weighted average of each of the five components. For example a total value of 73.4 indicates strong growth in restaurant industry employment.

Click here to see a sample of the survey.

Please contact Shyam Patel, Senior Research Analyst and Director of Operations for People Report with any questions or comments via email at