By the end of April, nearly 200,000 leisure and hospitality workers across the state (more than half of the sector’s workforce, which is disproportionately made up of women and people of color) had lost their jobs, and employment levels in the sector are still down 32%, compared with 25.6% nationwide.
Those working in the food preparation and serving industry are particularly hard hit. For the majority of the pandemic, dishwashers, cooks, bartenders, cafeteria workers and others in the industry have made up the largest percentage of Washington’s unemployed — even as Gov. Jay Inslee relaxed restrictions this summer, allowing dining rooms to reopen at reduced capacity.
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