For hospitality leaders in New York. Hotel owners, operations leaders, HR and people leaders, restaurant groups and contract dining: see what the new contract means for your costs, your leadership seats and your managers.
Who are you?
The new union contract could add about $1.9 million a year to a 300-room hotel.
That is a first guess from press figures, for a hotel this size. Move the two sliders to see it for yours.
more every year for union jobs. That is 0% more than you pay today, for the same rooms sold.
A guess, not a quote. We have not seen the contract. These are press figures plus our guesses about your payroll. If your union share is a bit lower or higher, the answer is about . Added up over all 8 years, the extra is about . The math treats union pay as rising with rooms sold; real payroll is partly fixed.
Use your own numbers
These start as our guesses. Change any of them and everything moves.
Today and then
What you pay each year for union pay and the health fund.
Your price per night
To pay for it, each night you sell would have to cost a little more.
That is $21 more every night, or 6%.
Or fill more rooms
You could sell more rooms instead of charging more. Here is how full the hotel would have to be. More rooms sold also add cost, so treat this as a rough guide.
That is 5 more points of full.
How we got these numbers
- News reports say housekeeper pay goes from $39.87 to $61.07 an hour over 8 years, and all union pay goes up $21.20 an hour. We used the housekeeper path for all union jobs.
- They say the health fund goes from $27.25 to $30.25 for every $100 of pay. We used the new rate from year 1.
- We have not seen the contract. We do not know the pay for each year, so we used 8 equal steps.
- We guess 60 of every 100 pay dollars are union jobs, and $48 of pay for each room sold. Your price now is the 2025 New York average: $334. Change any guess above.
a year in labor cost. That is 0 points of your sales.
Where you land
In 2024, profitable full-service restaurants spent about 34% of sales on labor. The middle was 37%. Those losing money spent 43%.
And your managers
About 6 managers leave in a year. Replacing a general manager costs $17,500 or more.
The $17,500 is for a general manager. Other managers cost less. Seats that stay empty are what you can change.
How we got these numbers
- New York City pay is $17.00 an hour in 2026. The tipped cash wage is $11.35. From 2027, pay rises each year with a three-year average of prices (Fox Rothschild, summarizing the state rules).
- Labor was 36.5% of sales at the middle full-service restaurant in 2024. Profitable ones ran 34.2%. Those losing money ran 42.9%. This is a national study of 900+ restaurants, not New York only (National Restaurant Association).
- Manager turnover fell from 41% to 35% in a year at full-service restaurants. A general manager costs $17,500 or more to replace (Black Box Intelligence; we have seen a summary, not the full report).
- Your raise is your guess. We do not know your pay. The raise only changes the labor share.
from 5.3%. That is 3.5 points.
Who pays?
It depends on your contract with the client.
Under a fee contract the client's bill goes up instead. Compass says it passes wage inflation on to clients or reprices at renewal, with a delay. In that gap, you carry the cost.
What venue workers just won
New York stadium and arena food workers, from their union.
an hour over the contract at Citi Field and Yankee Stadium (July 2025). Citi Field minimum: $28.
lowest pay by the end of the Barclays Center contract (2023 deal).
Union releases and a newsletter we could only see in a search result. We have not seen the contracts.
How we got these numbers
- Profit margins: Aramark reported 5.3% for its fiscal 2025. Compass North America reported 8.2%. Your start is 5.3% until you move the slider.
- We could not find what share of sales is labor for contract dining. Your 35% is a guess. Change it.
- The math is simple: your extra cost is the labor share times the raise. Under a profit-and-loss contract, that comes straight out of your margin.
- Fee and profit-and-loss contract meanings come from a consultant's write-up.
Managers stay or leave
We cannot change the contract. What you can change is how long leader seats sit empty and how many reopen.
How many days is a leader's chair empty?
When a leader leaves, someone covers the seat. Move the two sliders to see how long your chairs stay empty in a year.
days with an empty chair. That is 0.7 of a leader, missing all year.
Each seat, across the year
Each gold bar is one seat, from the day it opens until it is filled.
The line is one year. The bars show how long each seat is empty; where they sit on the line is for illustration.
What we see in New York
From 527 public hotel postings, September and October 2026.
You are hiring against those 16. We read public postings only. Your own seats may look different.
What we see in New York
Multi-site restaurant groups, from our 2026 market read.
Our own read for New York fine dining groups was about 28 of 100 leaving in a year.
executive chef jobs open in New York
general manager jobs open in New York
Job counts are all open jobs on one job site (Glassdoor, 2026), not just yours. New openings add more seats.
What we see in New York
One large dining operator, as an example. From job postings and our market read.
manager jobs open at one time (23 sous chef, 8 director, 6 GM, 5 executive chef)
days: how long a GM seat stays open in the middle
That group had about one talent manager for about 100 manager hires a year. This is one company, not a rule.
What this rests on
- Your numbers come from the sliders. We do not know your business yet.
- The New York numbers are from public job postings read by HumanWorks. Postings show seats while they are open. They cannot show how long a seat sat empty before it was posted.
- We do not guess the cost of an empty day. Cover, overtime and lost sales differ at each property. Type your own number above and the page does the math.
Who stays in a hospitality career?
We looked at the careers of 11,650 people in our database. How many managers stay three years or more? Pick your kind of place, above, to see your number.
stayed three years or more. For all employers, it was 44.
Every manager who leaves is a seat someone has to cover or refill.
Each dot is a manager
Gold dots stayed three years or more.
All employers. 11,650 careers. Pick your kind of place, above.
“Stayed” means a finished stay of three years or more with one employer. People still in the job are not counted, so long stays may read low. This is a direction, not proof.
An HR seat we have filled: Assistant Director of HR, Florida, 21 days. More seats are listed further down.
What helps people stay
We looked at people who had stayed two years, all kinds of employers together. Then we asked who reached year 3.
A ladder may keep people. It may also be that strong people get promoted. We cannot tell yet. We have no control group.
What this rests on
- The careers of 11,650 people in our database who finished a stay at one of six kinds of employer. Names are not used. Years are rounded.
- Sizes: national brands 3,980. Contract dining 4,183. Luxury hotels 354. Management companies 1,535. Restaurant groups 385. New York independent hotel groups 1,213.
- This is a direction, not proof.
Optional: how ready is your hiring? Five taps.
Tap each one that is true for you. Nothing is sent.
Tap what is true for you.
Leadership seats we have filled
HumanWorks is part of Patrice & Associates. These are recent leadership seats P&A recruiters filled in hotels, resorts, venues and contract dining, mostly in the Northeast, all with a posted base over $90,000.
Already have a hiring team? We work the few seats it cannot fill, or that keep reopening.
days, in the middle, from job opened to offer accepted
seats: 9 in the Northeast (4 in New York City) and 1 spanning several states
More seats outside the Northeast (6)
Hotel and resort leadership seats with a posted base over $90,000. The middle was about 54 days.
What the one-page read looks like
Want it with your real numbers?
Name the seat you struggle to fill. We send a one-page read for hotels like yours, built from public postings and our data. Add your open jobs if you want them in it.
You get one page by email, then one follow-up note. A call only if you ask. It comes from Darein Burton, founder of HumanWorks. We use your email to send this page and one follow-up note, and we do not sell it. Privacy.
Prefer to talk first? Book 20 minutes.We name your three hardest seats to fill and what we see for each in New York.These are estimates, not promises. Photo: Alan Light, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 (cropped). Sources: Hotel Dive, Commercial Observer, NYS Comptroller (July 2026), Actabl, and HumanWorks analysis of public postings, 11,650 careers, and placement records from Patrice & Associates; Black Box Intelligence, the National Restaurant Association, and company reports (Aramark, Compass).