As the economy continues to rebound, albeit more slowly than we’d all prefer, the leisure, food service and hospitality industries are more than pulling their weight. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the leisure and hospitality industry adding 174,000 jobs total in August, of which restaurants and bars accounted for 133,600 of them – a full 76%+ of the total added during the month, With those numbers, the industry unemployment rate dropped 3.7 percentage points to 21.3 percent. As was reported last week, the national unemployment rate also dropped in August to 8.4 percent, still high, but well below the April peak unemployment rate of 14.7 percent. We’re steadily moving in the right direction!