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Cooks, Short Order vs Fast Food and Counter Workers

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

A factual, source-backed comparison of Cooks, Short Order and Fast Food and Counter Workers 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, Short Order Fast Food and Counter Workers
Median pay · BLS OEWS
$35,620
$30,480
Employment · BLS OEWS
150,420
3,780,930
AI exposure (percentile) · task overlap, not automation
47th pct
56th pct

At a glance

Dimension Cooks, Short Order Fast Food and Counter Workers
Median pay $35,620 $30,480
Employment 150,420 3,780,930
Employment outlook (2024–34) · BLS projection Declining (-5.6%) About average (+6.1%)
Annual openings · BLS projection 20,600 904,300
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 · 47th pct Moderate · 56th pct
Global GenAI gradient · ILO ISCO-08 · via crosswalk 29th pct · 18% of tasks —
Observed AI use · Anthropic Economic Index Automation-leaning (31.8%) —
Mostly remote-capable · Dingel–Neiman 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: Food Production, Oral Comprehension, Near Vision, Customer and Personal Service, Trunk Strength, English Language, Reading Comprehension, Active Listening, Time Management, Information Ordering, Manual Dexterity, Speaking, Coordination, Service Orientation, Problem Sensitivity, Selective Attention, Time Sharing, Arm-Hand Steadiness, Finger Dexterity, Critical Thinking, Monitoring, Oral Expression, Far Vision, Speech Clarity, Deductive Reasoning, Speech Recognition, Social Perceptiveness, Judgment and Decision Making, Auditory Attention, Production and Processing, Memorization.

Specific to Cooks, Short Order

  • Control Precision
  • Category Flexibility
  • Written Comprehension
  • Extent Flexibility
  • Visual Color Discrimination
  • Complex Problem Solving
  • Inductive Reasoning
  • Perceptual Speed

Specific to Fast Food and Counter Workers

  • Mathematics
  • Computers and Electronics
  • Administration and Management
  • Sales and Marketing
  • Administrative
  • Education and Training
  • Personnel and Human Resources
  • Foreign Language

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: Point of sale POS software .

Specific to Cooks, Short Order

Specific to Fast Food and Counter Workers

Full profiles

This page is a summary. See the complete source-backed profile for Cooks, Short Order or Fast Food and Counter Workers — 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, Short Order vs Fast Food and Counter Workers." 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-short-order-vs-fast-food-and-counter-workers

APA

Singulariki. (2026). Cooks, Short Order vs Fast Food and Counter Workers. Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Retrieved June 7, 2026, from https://singulariki.com/compare/cooks-short-order-vs-fast-food-and-counter-workers

BibTeX 
@misc{singulariki-cooks-short-order-vs-fast-food-and-counter-workers,
  title  = {Cooks, Short Order vs Fast Food and Counter Workers},
  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-short-order-vs-fast-food-and-counter-workers}
}

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