Over the next decade, industry experts expect the restaurant labor shortage to worsen as the workforce under age 25 declines. That’s why many are looking to immigrants to fill the growing labor gap.
Macie Kelly / Houston Public Media
Cooks at Hugo’s in Houston prepare for the lunch shift.
The food in Houston is from all over the world — and so are the workers.
A third of Houston’s food and entertainment workers are immigrants, according to the local think-tank Center for Houston’s Future. Around half of those workers are undocumented.
Even at a national level, restaurants have a higher concentration of foreign-born workers than the U.S. economy in general, representing 24% of workers, the National Restaurant Association reported.
©2024 Texas Standard. A service of the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin | Contact us
