Career Trends: Food and Beverage Serving and Related Workers

Food and beverage serving and related workers perform a variety of customer service, food preparation, and cleaning duties in restaurants, cafeterias, and other eating and drinking establishments.

Food and beverage serving and related workers are employed in restaurants, schools, hospitals, cafeterias, and other dining places. Work shifts often include early mornings, late evenings, weekends, and holidays. Many food and beverage serving and related workers worked part time in 2014.

Most food and beverage serving and related workers learn their skills on the job. No formal education or previous work experience is required.

Employment of food and beverage serving and related workers is projected to grow 10 percent from 2014 to 2024, faster than the average for all occupations. Job opportunities in most dining establishments will be excellent because many workers leave the occupation each year, resulting in numerous job openings.

This occupation supported 4,438,100 jobs in 2012 and 4,731,799 jobs in 2014, reflecting an increase of 6.6%. In 2012, this occupation was projected to increase by 11.8% in 2022 to 4,961,299 jobs. As of 2014, to keep pace with prediction, the expected number of jobs was 4,542,700, compared with an observed value of 4,731,799, 4.2% higher than expected. This indicates current employment trends are better than the 2012 trend within this occupation. In 2014, this occupation was projected to increase by 10.2% in 2024 to 5,183,700 jobs. Linear extrapolation of the 2012 projection for 2022 results in an expected number of 5,065,900 jobs for 2024, 2.3% lower than the 2014 projection for 2024. This indicates expectations for future employment trends are better than the 2012 trend within this occupation.