In May, the Los Angeles City Council voted to delay the city’s “Olympic” $30 minimum wage after hearing from local hotels that it was hurting employment and business operations. New data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows LA’s hotel minimum wage ordinance has been stunting hotel industry employment for years, and turning into job losses in 2025.
This week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released data on employment in the fourth quarter of 2025, providing a full picture of the employment situation for most businesses across the country.
The news for Los Angeles County was dire: hotel jobs were down -1.7% in December 2025 compared to the previous year. This is the largest year-over-year drop in the hotel industry in a decade (barring losses related to COVID). While countywide the minimum wage reached $17.81 an hour last year (higher than the state’s $16.50 hourly mandate), the City of Los Angeles also increased its hotel-specific minimum wage mandate up to $22.50 an hour.
Looking back further, the data shows that despite other factors that have affected local hotels, the trajectory of hotel minimum wage hikes in L.A. correlates with a multi-year history of declining employment growth. In January 2025, Los Angeles experienced a series of devastating wildfires that affected residents and businesses alike. But local hotels had been experiencing declining employment growth years before, since the latest hotel wage hike ordinance began in Summer 2022. Wage mandates as high as L.A.’s could also make it even harder for local businesses to recover after external disasters.
The City Council took an important first step in addressing the problems caused by the hotel minimum wage ordinance by delaying implementation of the $30 target by two years. However, the city’s hotel industry has been struggling for years – and the two-year delay still mandates annual wage hikes for hotels, ultimately still reaching the $30 per hour mark in 2030.
In the next several years, L.A. will host tourists from around the world for the World Cup this summer and the Olympics in 2028. Lawmakers – including the soon-to-be-elected new Mayor of Los Angeles – should consider how the city’s wage mandates may decimate the very industry that will welcome international travelers.