Labor Market Pulse · Restaurant Industry · September 2026
Restaurant Industry Labor Market Report: Billings, MT MSA — September 2026
Billings pays up for managers while entry wages soften.
Restaurant Manager pay climbed to $70,000 and Assistant Manager pay to $46,068 in Billings even as Crew pay slipped to $32,240, against a metro unemployment rate of just 2.9%.
Free archive edition. Published by WageScape as sent to subscribers; data as of September 2026.
Key indicators
- Billings MSA unemployment rate: 2.9% — vs 3.2% Montana, 4.1% national (Aug 2026)
- Yellowstone County avg weekly wage: $1,285 — up 4.2% YoY, Q1 2026
- MT leisure/hospitality avg weekly wage: $568 — lowest of any MT sector, vs $1,559 construction
- MT accommodation/food services growth: 1.2% — down from 2.1% prior period, cited to shortages
Key takeaways
Management pay is pulling away from the national trend.
Billings GM/Restaurant Manager pay sits at $70,000, up significantly and well above the $59,618 national median, which is itself declining. That divergence suggests local operators are treating management retention as the binding constraint on labor cost control, not hourly staffing.
Crew pay softening could be a false signal of slack.
Crew advertised pay fell moderately to $32,240 even as the metro unemployment rate sits near a historic low of 2.9%. Falling entry-level pay in a genuinely tight labor market is more consistent with employers pulling back postings than with easing competition for workers — worth testing against actual time-to-fill data before assuming hiring has gotten easier.
No-tip-credit policy keeps compressing the FOH/BOH wage gap.
Montana's requirement that tipped employees receive the full $10.85 minimum, combined with Server pay rising moderately to $30,921, means the traditional discount on front-of-house base wages has largely disappeared. Operators benchmarking server compensation against tip-credit states elsewhere in the country are likely underestimating true Montana labor cost as a share of revenue.
Statewide hospitality wage floor still trails every other sector.
Leisure/hospitality's $568 average weekly wage compares to $1,559 for construction statewide, a gap that predates this month but keeps widening as construction and healthcare post faster wage growth. Current conditions suggest total rewards packages, not just base pay, may be the more effective lever for closing this recruitment gap.
Median advertised pay by role — Billings, MT MSA
| Role | 25th percentile | Median advertised pay | 75th percentile | Metro trend | National median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Assistant Restaurant Manager | $35,180 | $46,068 | $50,960 | Significant increase | $39,000 |
| Catering Manager * | $43,663 | $53,124 | $56,338 | Moderate decline | $50,960 |
| Crew | $26,121 | $32,240 | $34,320 | Moderate decline | $29,839 |
| Line Cook | $31,200 | $35,360 | $37,765 | Stable | $36,826 |
| Restaurant Manager/General Manager | $50,960 | $70,000 | $75,000 | Significant increase | $59,618 |
| Server | $22,880 | $30,921 | $35,360 | Moderate increase | $35,012 |
| Shift Manager | $31,716 | $37,960 | $39,520 | Moderate increase | $32,731 |
* State-level figure shown where metro postings were too few.
WageScape's median is calibrated to correct for spurious low-value postings (reported as the 60th percentile of raw advertised pay). Download: CSV · JSON
Local market conditions
Billings MSA unemployment held at 2.9% in August, well below the national 4.1% and even Montana's 3.2%, confirming a labor pool that remains structurally tight for restaurant operators competing against healthcare and construction for hourly workers. Yellowstone County's average weekly wage rose 4.2% year-over-year to $1,285, yet leisure/hospitality's statewide average weekly wage of $568 remains the lowest of any sector, widening the gap operators must close to compete for front-of-house and back-of-house talent.
What it means
Montana's no-tip-credit policy already forces servers to be paid the full $10.85 minimum, and the metro's advertised Server pay of $30,921 — up moderately year-over-year — suggests operators are layering additional wage pressure on top of that floor rather than relying on tips to close the gap. With Assistant Restaurant Manager and GM/Restaurant Manager pay both up significantly locally ($46,068 and $70,000 respectively, against national medians moving down or flat), Billings operators appear to be bidding aggressively for supervisory talent even as entry-level Crew pay has softened. Consider reviewing whether management-tier pay increases are outpacing the labor budget's capacity to also fund FOH/BOH retention, since a market that pays up for supervisors while entry wages soften risks a thinner bench of promotable internal talent.
Looking ahead
Expected: Montana's CPI-tied minimum wage adjustment lands September 30, which will mechanically raise the wage floor again heading into Q4 budgeting season. Operators should model the compounding effect on both tipped and non-tipped labor lines before finalizing 2027 labor cost projections.
Early indicator: National accommodation and food services job openings fell from 916,000 in January 2026 to 673,000 by July, and Montana's sector growth has slowed to 1.2% from 2.1%. Watch whether Billings postings follow the national cooling trend or continue running hot given the metro's below-1-point unemployment gap to the national rate.
Emerging pressure point: Montana employment edged down in 2025 for the first annual decline since 2020, with job growth now concentrated almost entirely in healthcare. If that pattern persists, restaurant operators may face a shrinking pool of workers rotating out of other low-wage sectors into hospitality roles.
Worth watching: Advertised Shift Manager pay rose moderately to $37,960 locally against a flat national median, narrowing the gap to Assistant Manager pay. If that compression continues, operators may need to re-examine promotion-track pay steps to preserve a clear incentive to advance from hourly supervisory roles.
Methodology
Advertised pay from active employer job postings, not survey data. WageScape's median is calibrated to correct for spurious low-value postings: distribution analysis shows roughly the lowest 10% of raw values are erroneous entries, so the reported median is the 60th percentile of raw advertised pay. WageScape observes 98% of U.S. job openings daily.
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