How much should your hospitality venue be spending on staff?

Start with the benchmark

In New Zealand, the Restaurant Association’s 2025 Remuneration Survey reported average wage costs reaching 40% for the first time. It called that figure a serious signal for the industry, particularly when food costs commonly account for another 28-35% of revenue.

In the UK, labour costs have recently been reported at around 35% of total sales.

Those are pretty chunky numbers once you add rent, utilities and everything else that has to come out of the same dollar.

But 40% being what businesses are currently spending doesn’t automatically make 40% the target.

A benchmark is a place to start looking - not a score you have to beat.

Make sure you’re counting the same thing

“Staff cost” can mean very different things.

One venue might be looking at base wages. Another might include salaries, holiday pay, KiwiSaver or super, payroll taxes, workers compensation, penalty rates and other on-costs.

So before comparing your percentage with someone else’s, make sure you’re comparing the same thing.

And don’t forget the owner. If you’re working huge hours without paying yourself a market wage, your staffing percentage might look fantastic while hiding a pretty important cost.

A high percentage doesn’t always mean too many staff

Say you spend $3,000 on staff.

• On $10,000 of sales, that’s 30%. 
• On $7,500 of sales, it’s 40%.

It’s the same roster and wages, but a very different percentage.

Sometimes staffing is the challenge. Sometimes sales are the challenge.

That’s why immediately cutting a shift because your weekly percentage looks ugly can be a pretty blunt response.

The better question is:

Where is it happening, and does it keep happening?

Look for the pattern

This is where looking at staffing alongside trade becomes much more useful than staring at one weekly number.

With Bustle Staffing, you can see your rostered and actual staffing costs alongside your order value by hour; a handy tool to review your staffing over time. You can look back at a particular week, or use Average day across a longer period.

That might show you a quieter period that regularly carries more staff than the trade needs. Or it might show that your expensive-looking Saturday team is completely justified by the sales coming through.

You also include estimated on-costs, so you’re looking at more than the wage figure alone.

The useful question here isn’t:
“Was staffing high last Tuesday?”
It’s:
“Does this keep happening?”

Don’t manage labour with a chainsaw

The goal isn’t to spend as little as possible on people.
Cut too deeply and service slows, your team gets smashed, customers wait longer and you may end up selling less.

Sometimes the answer is a small roster change - shifting a start time, finishing someone earlier, or putting another person on during the hour they’re actually needed.

Sometimes it’s making service easier. And sometimes technology can help.

Bustle Online, for example, gives customers another way to order - ahead for pickup or from the table. For the right venue, that can take some pressure off the counter during busy periods and may help you handle more trade without automatically adding another person to the roster.

It costs considerably less than another regular shift, but the point isn’t to replace hospitality with technology. It’s to let your team spend their time where people make the biggest difference.

Find your number

Your best benchmark is ultimately your own business. Look back across a run of reasonably normal weeks.

• Which ones were profitable, well staffed and good for both the team and customers?
• Maybe your healthy number is 31%. Maybe it’s 36%.
• Maybe you’re currently at 40% and your first goal is 38%.

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Industry benchmarks tell you where to look, but your own history tells you what to do.

The goal here isn’t winning a competition for the lowest staff percentage. It’s making sure every dollar you spend on your team is doing good work.

Where does your venue sit? What staff-cost percentage are you aiming for, and has that changed over the past few years? We’d love to hear what you’re seeing - come join the conversation on our socials, or have a chat with the Bustle team.

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