Every general manager we talk to already knows the number in their gut before anyone hands them a spreadsheet: keeping a front desk or a kitchen fully staffed this year is harder, and more expensive, than it was even twelve months ago. What has changed in 2026 is that the industry finally has the data to put a price tag on that feeling, and the picture is sobering enough to explain why so many hotels and restaurants are widening their search for talent well beyond their usual zip code.
The turnover math behind every open shift
Accommodation and food service workers were quitting their jobs at a rate of 4.3% a month as of March 2026, roughly double the 2.2% average across the private sector, a gap that compounds into an annual turnover rate near 74% for the industry as a whole. Quick service restaurants often blow past 100% turnover in a single year, and even well run, full service hotels tend to see 40 to 60% turnover in front line departments like housekeeping and food and beverage. That is five times the 12 to 15% turnover most other industries consider normal.
None of that churn is free. Industry estimates put the true cost of replacing a hospitality worker at 30 to 50% of that person's annual pay once recruiting, onboarding, lost productivity during training, and the overtime paid to cover the gap are all added up. For someone earning 16 dollars an hour, that is somewhere between 10,000 and 17,000 dollars walking out the door with them, and it happens on repeat, department by department, all year long.
A shortfall that is not closing on its own
The American Hotel and Lodging Association's 2026 State of the Industry outlook projects U.S. hotels will pay out 131 billion dollars in wages and benefits this year, up from 128 billion in 2025 and now 15.3% above 2019 levels, while total operating revenue has grown only 12.8% over that same stretch. Wages are rising faster than the revenue meant to cover them, and the same outlook forecasts an 18% labor shortfall industry wide, concentrated in housekeeping, front desk, culinary, and maintenance roles, the exact positions hardest to keep filled.
Separate surveys of hoteliers back this up from the ground: about two thirds report active staffing shortages, and roughly seven in ten say they have open roles they simply cannot fill despite genuinely trying. At the same time, tighter processing and longer waits on visa categories like J-1 and H-2B have slowed a pipeline that many properties leaned on for years, turning immigration timelines into something HR teams now have to plan around like any other operational constraint.
Why the search is going international, and often Italian
Faced with all of this, employers are doing the sensible thing: widening the pool. Surveyed hotels report raising wages, adding flexible scheduling, and offering better benefits, but a growing number are also looking past their local labor market entirely and recruiting internationally. Italy sits at an unusual intersection here. It trains hospitality workers, chefs, sommeliers, front of house staff, through a culture and a technical school system built around service as a craft, and it currently has more trained talent than its own market can absorb at competitive wages. That mismatch is exactly the gap a well run visa and recruitment pipeline can close for an employer abroad.
This is the work we do every day: matching Italian hospitality professionals who already have the training and the work ethic with hotels and restaurants that have the open roles and the growth plans, and handling the visa process so that neither side has to become immigration experts to make it happen.
Data referenced from the American Hotel and Lodging Association's 2026 State of the Industry report, Netchex, and Business Travel News.
The hotels that stop treating turnover as an act of nature, and start treating it as a solvable staffing problem, are the ones that will be fully staffed this time next year.