GREENSBORO, N.C. — According to the most recent jobs report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, job growth slowed in April.

From hospitality to manufacturing, several industries are racing to add enough jobs to welcome people back to work, but numbers for April fell shorter than experts anticipated.

Employers added just 266,000 jobs in April, which was lower than March’s numbers.

What You Need To Know

  • Nationwide job growth in April fell shorter than expected by experts

  • Hospitality is one industry that’s working to add employees back to the payroll as restaurant and hotel reservations increase

  • Some hospitality workers are choosing to stay unemployed and receive benefits, but some in the industry say the ones who are back are the ones they want to keep

Joyce Phillips is someone who has spent the last 15 years in the hospitality industry. She worked her way up from a security position to the banquet manager in the events department of the Quaintance-Weaver Restaurants and Hotels group based in Greensboro.

“I’ve enjoyed it ever since I started and grew into more of the food and beverage side,” Joyce Phillips said. “And then jumped over to the hotel side just recently.”

She was furloughed last March and remained without a job until September, when she was asked to move to help manage Greensboro’s Proximity and O’Henry Hotels.

“There are so many things that you plan for, your future, or just in the year 2020 I kept saying ‘this is my year,’” Phillips said. “And it didn’t happen that way, but here’s 2021, and we’ll go ahead and move forward from here.”

She hopes to move forward with a few more staff members on her roster. The hospitality industry needs more employees like Phillips to come back to hotels and restaurants across the state and country, where business is picking up.

“It’s not slowing down; it is picking up, so we are definitely in the hiring process and looking for candidates to see if they fit the mold,” Phillips said.

The Quaintance Weaver group has a list of current openings for its restaurants in Greensboro and Cary on its website.