The Components of Payroll Costs in Hospitality

Robert Mandelbaum | August 15, 2017

By Robert Mandelbaum Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average hourly compensation for a hospitality industry employee increased by 3.6 percent in 2016. In the hotel industry, labor costs average roughly 50 percent of total operating expenses[1]. Therefore, with STR reporting an annual RevPAR growth rate of 3.2 percent for the year, it is understandable that U.S. hotel owners and operators were concerned about their ability to increase profits. Based on the results of CBRE Hotels' Americas Research's 2017 edition of Trends® in the Hotel Industry, hotel management was able to contain the growth of labor costs in 2016. On averag...