The Hospitality Staffing Forecast: What Every GM Should Know Before Year-End

Key Takeaways:
The hospitality industry enters 2026 with strong travel demand but faces a projected 18% labor shortfall, with the most acute gaps in housekeeping, front desk, culinary, and maintenance roles (AHLA). Generational shifts, high turnover, skills gaps, and tighter immigration policies continue to constrain talent pipelines. To stay ahead, hotels must rely on volume-based labor forecasting, clear task-time benchmarks, flexible staffing models, and strategic recruitment and retention upgrades. Technology, especially AI-enabled scheduling and automated workflows, will play a critical role in optimizing labor against fluctuating demand. For many properties, partnering with a dedicated hospitality staffing agency is now an operational necessity, ensuring access to vetted, trained talent that can scale with seasonal, event-driven, or last-minute needs.

The end of the year is rapidly approaching, and most hospitality businesses are working through their planning for 2026. The good news is that the hospitality industry has entered a period of sustained growth. Travel has rebounded in a major way since the pandemic, and the hospitality industry is currently the fastest growing sector in the United States. Over the next decade, the industry is projected to create 90.6 million new jobs, with hotels being the primary driver of job growth in the industry.

The growth in travel demand creates tremendous opportunities for hospitality businesses in 2026, but staffing shortages that have plagued the industry in recent years can make it difficult for your business to adequately address this demand. It’s critical to understand the current state of hospitality staffing when planning for the upcoming year to ensure you can navigate these challenges successfully and maintain the high standards your guests expect.

Projected Hospitality Staffing Shortfalls by Role in 2026

The hospitality industry is projected to have an 18% shortfall below required levels for 2026, with guest-facing, low-skilled and specialized operational roles likely to be the hardest positions to fill. According to the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA), the following hospitality roles are expected to experience the highest projected shortfalls in 2026:

• Housekeeping – Housekeeping is consistently identified as the hardest role to fill, with nearly 38% of hotels reporting shortages for this position.
• Front Desk – Roughly 26% of hotels report persistent understaffing in front desk roles.
• Culinary – Specialized kitchen roles, including bakers and chefs, are highly competitive and difficult to fill. Approximately 14% of hotels report struggling to address culinary staffing needs, especially during peak demand.
• Maintenance – Approximately 13% of hotels surveyed struggle to fill maintenance roles.

In addition, many high-demand event venues struggle to address shortages in skilled event staff and bartenders, while seasonal destinations and resorts often experience staffing shortages in a wide range of positions due to a limited labor pool and fewer incoming seasonal workers.

Factors Driving Hospitality Staffing Shortages

There are a variety of factors behind the ongoing staffing shortage impacting the hospitality industry. These include:

• Reduction in Younger Workers – The hospitality industry has traditionally leaned on younger workers as the backbone of their workforce, but that has changed in recent years. Fewer young people have entered the hospitality industry since the pandemic. Many younger candidates, particularly under age 30, have demonstrated less willingness to take entry level or intensive shift jobs, especially in customer-facing roles.
• Retention Issues – The hospitality industry experiences a 70-80% annual turnover rate. Factors such as demanding scheduling patterns, limited visible career progression and relatively low wages are commonly cited as driving factors behind this high turnover rate. Many experienced workers have also left the industry, resulting in leaner teams and additional operational strain.
• Skills Gap – The generational turnover in the hospitality industry has created a widening skills gap. Over 60% of hospitality businesses report challenges finding qualified candidates, even for entry level positions, due to deficits in core hospitality workplace skills such as time management, digital literacy and teamwork.
• Tightening Immigration Policies – The current immigration policies in the United States are making it harder for many hospitality businesses to address their staffing needs, since many of these roles are often filled by immigrant workers.

Practical Staffing Strategies Hotels Should Adopt for 2026

Widespread industry-wide staffing shortages will require hotels to get creative addressing their staffing needs in 2026. Making sure you have the proper coverage will require implementing a mix of strategies that will help you both anticipate demand and secure the proper staff to address your needs as demand changes throughout the year.

Evaluate the Metrics that Actually Predict Workload

Traditionally, many hotels have used revenue projections to anticipate their labor needs. But revenue typically isn’t an accurate predictor of the specific position-by-position staffing levels you’ll need at a specific time. A more effective approach is to implement a volume-based labor forecasting strategy that aligns with the ways in which work is performed.

Tracking and evaluating the following metrics will help you to more effectively anticipate your staffing needs:

• Occupied Rooms – This is the most reliable metric to predict the workload of your front office, housekeeping and engineering staff.
• Arrivals and Departures – These figures have the biggest impact on predicting your housekeeping staffing needs at any particular time.
• Covers and Check Averages – These metrics are critical for getting your restaurant and banquet staffing needs right.
• Event Counts and Group Blocks – These metrics will help you anticipate staffing needs for large functions.

Translate Metrics into Strategy

Tracking the right metrics will help you predict the amount of work that will be required of your staff at any particular time, but you still need to translate these metrics into a clear strategy for how much staff is required to complete the work. This is accomplished by establishing time benchmarks for how long it takes to complete the essential tasks of each role under normal conditions.

Some standards to establish include:

• How long it takes to clean a stayover room vs. preparing a room for the next occupants
• How many lunch covers can each server handle
• How many guest arrivals can each bellperson handle

Establishing these types of standards will help you accurately anticipate your staffing needs in a variety of ways:

• They ensure consistency in staffing plans between different managers and departments
• They reduce guesswork and help you defend your staffing budget
• They improve your ability to track productivity

Create Flexible Staffing Models

Our current economic climate has made for increased unpredictability in the hospitality industry, making it hard to adhere to rigid staffing plans. Last-minute cancellations and event surges make a flexible staffing model a necessity for every hotel.

The following tactics will help you maintain the flexible staffing necessary to respond to last-minute changes in demand:

• Crosstrain staff for multiple departments so employees can shift between roles as needs change
• Use relief staff and on-call staff to fill gaps and prevent burnout among your permanent employees
• Partner with a hospitality staffing agency who can provide you reliable staff on short notice as your needs change

Invest in Technology and Automation

Investing in property management systems, AI-driven scheduling platforms and technology that can automate repetitive tasks can improve efficiency and free up your staff to focus on guest service aspects of their job. For example, AI-powered tools can be used to forecast staffing needs based on historical patterns, local events and booking data. This can help you more effectively align staffing with demand.

Adjust Recruitment and Retention Strategies

Effective employee recruitment and retention strategies are essential when facing staffing shortages. Making the following adjustments to your practices can help you attract more candidates and keep good employees longer:

• Recruit from a broader talent pool, including veterans, students, retirees and international workers
• Establish connections with vocational colleges, universities and community workforce centers to create a pipeline of future employees
• Offer competitive pay, flexible work arrangements, expanded benefits and visible internal growth opportunities to attract and retain workers while helping them view hospitality as a long-term career

Partner with a Hospitality Staffing Agency

The strategies discussed above can help you navigate the challenging staffing landscape impacting the hospitality industry in 2026, but you’re also likely to need the help of a third-party staffing provider. It’s best to take a proactive approach and establish a relationship with a hospitality staffing agency in your area who can serve as your dedicated partner.

Partnering with a hospitality staffing agency provides several important benefits:

• Your staffing agency will understand your staffing needs and operational standards, making it easier to supply the right workers to deliver the exceptional experience your guests expect
• Your staffing agency will make it easier to quickly adjust staffing levels to match fluctuations in demand and address unexpected issues caused by last-minute surges, absenteeism and employee turnover
• Dedicated hospitality staffing agencies maintain pools of pre-screened, industry-trained candidates who can step into your operations and perform a variety of roles while blending in seamlessly with your permanent staff
• Hospitality staffing agencies can provide a cost-effective way to manage your staffing needs by minimizing in-house recruitment expenses and reducing overtime expenditures

Xclusive Services Can Help You Navigate Your 2026 Staffing Needs

Simply working with a staffing provider won’t guarantee that you have the quality staff you need to keep your operations running smoothly year round. It’s important to partner with a hospitality staffing agency that can become an integral part of your operations. At Xclusive Services, we can provide the flexible staffing solutions you need to remain resilient and thrive over the next year.

Xclusive was founded in 2002 by hotel industry professionals who believed there was a better way to approach hospitality staffing. Our leadership team understands the staffing challenges your hotel experiences because they’ve lived these challenges throughout their careers. This allows us to provide the customized staffing solutions you need to operate at optimal efficiency.

At Xclusive, we provide staffing solutions for a wide range of hospitality positions at locations throughout the country. We can assist in any city where we have a presence, providing you with the comprehensive staffing assistance you need.

Our team takes a proactive approach to addressing staffing needs by scheduling quarterly strategic meetings with our clients that allow us to remain in constant communication with your management team so that we can understand how your needs are shifting with each season. This helps us predict your required staffing levels and have the proper plan in place.

You’ll benefit from our Xclusive Excellence™ commitment ensuring you receive the high-quality staff you need to provide an exceptional guest experience. We deliver on this commitment by making sure we choose the right person for the right position. All of the staff we provide have been vetted to ensure they adhere to the high quality standards we expect form our employees. You’ll have peace of mind that you’re receiving experienced employees who can blend in seamlessly with your existing team and maintain your standards of excellence.

Contact us today to learn more about our comprehensive hospitality solutions. If you need help immediately, call one of our local offices, and one of our Xclusive team members will be ready to assist you.