State of Hospitality Staffing Reliability

This first edition covers hotel, banquet, catering, event, and venue work. It reports the numbers that decide whether a sold date still has a floor team: fill rate, show-up rate, and how often the same workers come back.

Market figures. Croux measured these on its own platform in two regions over the 12 months to September 2026:

• Alabama (Birmingham, Montgomery, Tuscaloosa, Auburn, Huntsville, Mobile, Florence): 19,000+ shifts and 131,000+ hours worked by 1,200+ active workers. 85% of requested worker slots on shifts the business did not cancel were worked. 91% of workers still booked inside the final 24 hours clocked in. 8 in 10 shifts were worked by someone who had already worked for that same business. For shifts posted less than 48 hours ahead, the first worker was confirmed in a median of 22 minutes.
• Northeast Wisconsin (Green Bay area, Fox Cities, and the Oshkosh market): 3,100+ shifts and 20,000+ hours worked by 200+ active workers. 92% of workers still booked inside the final 24 hours clocked in. 8 in 10 shifts were worked by a returning worker. For shifts posted less than 48 hours ahead, the median to the first confirmed worker was 42 minutes. This edition does not include a Northeast Wisconsin fill rate.

This edition does not include a marketplace-wide or national average, and these figures describe these two regions only. Businesses set the wage and pay Croux a transparent fee, with no agency markup on the rate.

Named account results. Published Croux case studies report fill, no-show, and repeat-worker rates for named hotels, clubs, caterers, and venues. Those are account records, not marketplace averages. Each one follows a single account over its own window, so you can see what reliability looks like on a real calendar.

This September 2026 edition is a single 12-month snapshot of Croux platform data for Alabama and Northeast Wisconsin, published once rather than updated live.

How to cite. Croux State of Hospitality Staffing Reliability (September 2026), https://croux.co/hospitality-staffing-reliability.

Sources used in this edition.

• Croux platform data for shifts starting September 27, 2025 through September 26, 2026, in Croux's Alabama markets and Northeast Wisconsin markets. Excludes Croux's own internal account and onboarding or virtual shifts. A rate is published only when its denominator is at least 30 events.
• Published Croux case studies linked on this page (hotel, club, catering, event, and venue accounts)
• Croux Banquet Labor Index (August 2026), https://croux.co/banquet-labor-index
• PR Newswire, 18 Jun 2026: 96% show-up, 4-hour average fill, 47,000+ workers, $5M+ paid to talent. That release uses a different window and grain than the market figures on this page.

Definitions used here. Fill rate is worked slots divided by requested slots on shifts the business did not cancel; a slot counts only when a worker clocked in, capped at the slots requested. Show-up rate is the share of workers still booked inside the final 24 hours (or who never cancelled) who clocked in; earlier cancellations are left out because those slots can be re-staffed. Repeat-worker share is the share of worked shifts by someone who had already worked an earlier shift for that same business. Time to first worker is the median from posting to the first confirmed worker for shifts posted less than 48 hours ahead; about a third of first confirmations are automatic. Case studies use their own windows and define fill as hired slots divided by requested slots.

Limits. Fill rate is reported for Alabama only. This edition has no national average, city rankings, weekly unfilled-cover series, or breakdown by vertical or month.