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Cooks, Restaurant vs Food Servers, Nonrestaurant

Side-by-side · O*NET · BLS · AI-exposure research · Anthropic Economic Index

A factual, source-backed comparison of Cooks, Restaurant and Food Servers, Nonrestaurant on the dimensions both occupations carry. Every figure is a position within an independent published dataset — not a verdict on which job is better, safer, or more “future-proof.”

Cooks, Restaurant Food Servers, Nonrestaurant
Median pay · BLS OEWS
$36,830
$34,460
Employment · BLS OEWS
1,452,130
271,780
AI exposure (percentile) · task overlap, not automation
60th pct
37th pct

At a glance

Dimension Cooks, Restaurant Food Servers, Nonrestaurant
Median pay $36,830 $34,460
Employment 1,452,130 271,780
Employment outlook (2024–34) · BLS projection Growing fast (+14.9%) About average (+3.0%)
Annual openings · BLS projection 250,700 48,000
Typical education · O*NET Usually requires a high school diploma or GED, though some occupations may not. Usually requires a high school diploma or GED, though some occupations may not.
AI exposure · published exposure studies Moderate · 60th pct Moderate · 37th pct
Global GenAI gradient · ILO ISCO-08 · via crosswalk 29th pct · 18% of tasks 47th pct · 26% of tasks
Observed AI use · Anthropic Economic Index Automation-leaning (49.8%) —
Mostly remote-capable · Dingel–Neiman No No

Pay and employment are BLS OEWS estimates; outlook and openings are BLS 2024–2034 projections; AI exposure and observed-use figures come from separate research and reflect exposure and usage, not predictions that either job will disappear. Compare like with like.

Skills

Shared: Near Vision, Food Production, Manual Dexterity, Problem Sensitivity, English Language, Speaking, Critical Thinking, Monitoring, Time Management, Oral Comprehension, Oral Expression, Information Ordering, Selective Attention, Arm-Hand Steadiness, Trunk Strength, Speech Recognition, Speech Clarity, Active Listening, Deductive Reasoning, Reading Comprehension, Far Vision, Customer and Personal Service, Coordination, Judgment and Decision Making, Written Comprehension, Extent Flexibility, Social Perceptiveness, Inductive Reasoning.

Specific to Cooks, Restaurant

  • Perceptual Speed
  • Time Sharing
  • Finger Dexterity
  • Control Precision
  • Visual Color Discrimination
  • Category Flexibility
  • Active Learning
  • Visualization

Specific to Food Servers, Nonrestaurant

  • Service Orientation
  • Administration and Management
  • Education and Training
  • Public Safety and Security
  • Mathematics
  • Psychology
  • Written Expression
  • Static Strength

Knowledge, skills & abilities O*NET rates as important for each occupation. “Shared” are common to both; the columns list what is distinctive to each (top by the order O*NET surfaces).

Tools & technology

Shared: Web page creation and editing software , Office suite software , Electronic mail software , Data base user interface and query software .

Specific to Cooks, Restaurant

Specific to Food Servers, Nonrestaurant

Full profiles

This page is a summary. See the complete source-backed profile for Cooks, Restaurant or Food Servers, Nonrestaurant — tasks, the full skill graph, tools, work context, preparation, wages by percentile, industries, AI exposure and the AI work map.

More comparisons

Related occupations you can place side by side on the same sourced scale.

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

Cite this page
Plain

Singulariki. "Cooks, Restaurant vs Food Servers, Nonrestaurant." Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Built from O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; BLS Employment Projections 2024–2034; Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27); Microsoft “Working with AI” working-with-ai; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130; AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE) Felten, Raj & Seamans; ILO / Gmyrek et al. GenAI exposure gradient 2025; IBS O*NET-SOC ↔ ISCO-08 occupation crosswalk 2022; Frey & Osborne (2013) frey-osborne-automation; Dingel & Neiman (2020) dingel-neiman-workathome. Accessed June 7, 2026. https://singulariki.com/compare/cooks-restaurant-vs-food-servers-nonrestaurant

APA

Singulariki. (2026). Cooks, Restaurant vs Food Servers, Nonrestaurant. Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Retrieved June 7, 2026, from https://singulariki.com/compare/cooks-restaurant-vs-food-servers-nonrestaurant

BibTeX 
@misc{singulariki-cooks-restaurant-vs-food-servers-nonrestaurant,
  title  = {Cooks, Restaurant vs Food Servers, Nonrestaurant},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; BLS Employment Projections 2024–2034; Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27); Microsoft “Working with AI” working-with-ai; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130; AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE) Felten, Raj & Seamans; ILO / Gmyrek et al. GenAI exposure gradient 2025; IBS O*NET-SOC ↔ ISCO-08 occupation crosswalk 2022; Frey & Osborne (2013) frey-osborne-automation; Dingel & Neiman (2020) dingel-neiman-workathome. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/compare/cooks-restaurant-vs-food-servers-nonrestaurant}
}

Citations name the underlying public dataset releases — they reflect what this page is built from, not just the URL.