12:13 PM ET, February 2, 2024

Demand for services — and jobs — is at a fever pitch

Jillian Hiscock, wearing a white hat, poses with friends and family in December.

Courtesy Jillian Hiscock

While the leisure and hospitality sector added just 11,000 jobs in January, the critical services sector posted its 36th straight month of job gains. Post-pandemic, services businesses have benefited from Americans' strong desire to spend money on experiences.

With that demand at a fever pitch, a new bar and restaurant in Minneapolis is seeing the results.

Jillian Hiscock is a month away from opening her own bar, which will exclusively show women's sporting events. The concept, inspired by The Sports Bra in Portland, Oregon, has received overwhelming support from the Twin Cities community since Hiscock floated the idea last spring and ran a crowdfunding campaign to get it off the ground.

The same is true for hiring efforts: Hiscock received 150 applications in two days for 25 to 30 open positions.

“Since things reopened [following the pandemic], we've got a lot of people whose relationships with work have fundamentally changed,” he said. “Now people are less interested in showing up and doing something that you don't care about as a human because we all know how quickly it can be taken down.”

People want a better balance between their work and personal lives, he said.

“People were really excited about it, not seeing it as just another job, but seeing it as an opportunity to be part of something bigger,” he said.

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