Restaurant And Hotel Wage And Benefit Increases Continued To Moderate 4Q-23

While the average leisure and hospitality wage-rate data in the most recent jobs reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was muddy because of revisions, that in the 4Q-23 “Employment Cost Index” from the BLS was not: both wages and benefit increases continued to fall.   For the 12 months ended 4Q-23 the gain in…