Editor’s note: We recently collaborated with Marketplace to create “The Marketplace Dozen,” a dashboard of key economic indicators that provides a quick read on the health of the economy. Naturally, the data raises almost as many questions as it answers. Our Ten Across data journalism fellow, Maya Chari, who is also the chief technical architect of the Dozen, set out to answer some of them.
Employment in the leisure and hospitality sector, which dropped by 46% between March and April 2020, now exceeds pre-pandemic levels, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The number of workers in the hospitality industry was 3% higher in April 2025 than it was in April 2019.
But the picture varies significantly by state. California, Texas, and Florida, in that order, are the states with the highest total numbers of hospitality workers. In California, employment in leisure and hospitality is still 1% lower than it was in 2019. Travelers to the Bay Area, many of whom come from China and other Asian countries, were slower to return than others due to reduced airline service to the United States after the pandemic.
