The National Guard says it's struggling to hire because workers are being lured in by Wendy's, Amazon, and FedEx instead

• The National Guard says it's struggling to hire as big private companies boost pay and benefits.
• It's competing with Wendy's, Amazon, UPS, FedEx, and Microsoft for talent.
• The average restaurant, bar, or cafe worker earns $17.64 an hour, up 26% in just over two years.

The National Guard says it's struggling to hire because potential applicants are being lured away by competitive packages at fast-food chains and other big companies.

Wendy's and Carl's Jr are two of the companies the Nevada Guard is competing with, Command Sgt. Maj. Marco Irenze said, per a press release by the National Guard Association of the United States last month.

"It's every job a young person goes up against, because they're offering the same incentives that we are right now," Irenze, who serves in the Nevada Guard's Recruiting and Retention Battalion, continued.

A senior advisor for the Washington Air Guard's Recruiting & Retention said that Amazon, Microsoft, and T-Mobile were rivals for talent in the state, while a recruiter for the Illinois Army Guard's Woodstock Sustainment Program listed FedEx and UPS as competitors.

Workers quit their jobs at record rates during the pandemic as they had the opportunity to evaluate what they wanted from work and from life. Though professions from teaching to healthcare were affected, it appeared to be low-paid, hourly roles like retail and restaurant jobs that were worst hit.

Employers were forced to reconsider what they offered their workers as a result, and many boosted wages, perks, and benefits to attract new staff.

As of April - the latest month for which data is available - production and nonsupervisory employees at food and drinking places earned an average of $17.64 an hour, per preliminary data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is up from $13.96 in January 2021 - an increase of more than a quarter in just over two years. When including supervisory roles, too, the average wage in April went up to $19.44 an hour.

Insider reached out to Wendy's and Carl's Jr for details on worker wages but didn't immediately hear back.

Across all private nonfarm jobs, workers in production and nonsupervisory roles earned $28.75 an hour in May on average, per preliminary seasonally-adjusted BLS data. Pay for military roles varies greatly depending on rank and years of experience.

"This is the most challenging recruiting environment the Department of Defense has probably ever faced," Col. Anthony Pasquale, the chief of the Air Guard's recruiting & retention division, said, per the press release. He warned that the Air Guard could fall between 3,000 and 4,000 airmen short of the 108,400 maximum it's allowed to have by the end of the fiscal year in September.

As well as high wages in other industries luring workers away from the military, the pandemic also made it harder for the National Guard to recruit in traditional ways such as at high schools, the National Guard Association said.