First-Line Supervisors of Food Preparation and Serving Workers

AI & job outlook

What today's research says about this occupation's exposure to AI, how AI is actually being used in it, and where employment is headed. These are positions within published studies — measures of exposure and usage, not predictions that this job will disappear.

Exposure to current AI

Each study uses its own scale, so the raw scores are not comparable across rows — the percentile (this job's rank among all U.S. occupations with data) is the comparable figure, and sizes the bars.

OpenAI's exposure study scores tasks three ways: with a language model alone (α 0.2), with simple added tooling (β 0.5), and including AI-powered software (γ 0.8). Higher means more of the job's tasks could be done at least twice as fast — not that they will be automated away.

This job mostly cannot be done remotely (Dingel–Neiman) — its hands-on tasks sit outside what software-based AI reaches.

How AI is actually used in this job

Among measured AI assistant conversations mapped to this occupation (Anthropic Economic Index, 2026-01-15), these task types came up most. These are shares of observed AI conversations — not shares of the job, of worker time, or of what could be automated.

Job outlook

Independent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics employment projection for 2024–2034 — a labor-market forecast, not an AI-impact forecast.

“Annual openings” counts new jobs plus replacements for workers who leave the occupation, so it can be large even when growth is modest.

Where this work sits on the global GenAI gradient

The ILO's 2025 global study scores generative-AI exposure on the international ISCO-08 occupation system, not US SOC. Bridged through the published (and approximate, many-to-many) IBS O*NET-SOC ↔ ISCO-08 crosswalk, this US occupation corresponds to the international 2 occupations below. Exposure here means how much of the work's tasks today's AI can attempt — task overlap, not automation, adoption, or jobs lost.

Read the whole six-band gradient on the GenAI exposure gradient page. The crosswalk is approximate: a US occupation can map to several international ones, and the ILO scores describe the international occupation, not this exact US role.

Working with AI in this job

How people actually apply AI to this occupation's tasks, from Claude.ai (Free and Pro) conversations in the Anthropic Economic Index, 2026-01-15. This is one AI assistant's consumer sample — not all AI, not the whole workforce. Autonomy and the collaboration mix are model-rated estimates; figures below the sample floor are hidden.

What people delegate to AI

The role's most common tasks in AI conversations, each tagged with how people work with the AI on it. “Usage” is the share of observed conversations, not of the job.

Where a human is still needed

Tasks where the model most often judged that a person remained necessary — a useful read on the current boundary, not a guarantee.

What people most often hand AI here

Example prompts phrased from the tasks people most often delegate to AI in this occupation (Anthropic Economic Index). Each shows the underlying measured task and its share of observed AI use. They are suggested phrasings of real tasks — starting points, not endorsed instructions.

• Help me train workers in food preparation, and in service, sanitation, and safety procedures.

  From: Train workers in food preparation, and in service, sanitation, and safety procedures. · 1.7% of measured AI use · learning

• Help me specify food portions and courses, production and time sequences, and workstation and equipment arrangements.

  From: Specify food portions and courses, production and time sequences, and workstation and equipment arrangements. · 1.2% of measured AI use · directive

• Help me develop departmental objectives, budgets, policies, procedures, and strategies.

  From: Develop departmental objectives, budgets, policies, procedures, and strategies. · 0.3% of measured AI use · task iteration

Tasks

All 26 tasks O*NET lists for this occupation, ordered by importance. Each links to its own page with AI-exposure and observed-use detail.

• Compile and balance cash receipts at the end of the day or shift. Core · importance 4.5
• Forecast staff, equipment, and supply requirements, based on a master menu. Core · importance 4.4
• Assess nutritional needs of patients, plan special menus, supervise the assembly of regular and special diet trays, and oversee the delivery of food trolleys to hospital patients. Supplemental · importance 4.3
• Perform personnel actions, such as hiring and firing staff, providing employee orientation and training, and conducting supervisory activities, such as creating work schedules or organizing employee time sheets. Core · importance 4.2
• Record production, operational, and personnel data on specified forms. Core · importance 4.2
• Resolve customer complaints regarding food service. Core · importance 4.2
• Estimate ingredients and supplies required to prepare a recipe. Core · importance 4.2
• Train workers in food preparation, and in service, sanitation, and safety procedures. Core · importance 4.2
• Assign duties, responsibilities, and work stations to employees in accordance with work requirements. Core · importance 4.1
• Present bills and accept payments. Core · importance 4.1
• Perform food preparation and serving duties, such as carving meat, preparing flambe dishes, or serving wine and liquor. Core · importance 4.1
• Purchase or requisition supplies and equipment needed to ensure quality and timely delivery of services. Supplemental · importance 4.1
• Perform various financial activities, such as cash handling, deposit preparation, and payroll. Core · importance 4.0
• Supervise and participate in kitchen and dining area cleaning activities. Core · importance 4.0
• Control inventories of food, equipment, smallware, and liquor, and report shortages to designated personnel. Core · importance 4.0
• Recommend measures for improving work procedures and worker performance to increase service quality and enhance job safety. Core · importance 4.0
• Specify food portions and courses, production and time sequences, and workstation and equipment arrangements. Core · importance 4.0
• Observe and evaluate workers and work procedures to ensure quality standards and service, and complete disciplinary write-ups. Core · importance 4.0
• Analyze operational problems, such as theft and wastage, and establish procedures to alleviate these problems. Core · importance 3.9
• Schedule parties and take reservations. Supplemental · importance 3.9
• Develop departmental objectives, budgets, policies, procedures, and strategies. Supplemental · importance 3.8
• Conduct meetings and collaborate with other personnel for menu planning, serving arrangements, and related details. Supplemental · importance 3.7
• Develop equipment maintenance schedules and arrange for repairs. Core · importance 3.7
• Inspect supplies, equipment, and work areas to ensure efficient service and conformance to standards. Core · importance 3.7
• Greet and seat guests, and present menus and wine lists. Supplemental · importance 3.5
• Evaluate new products for usefulness and suitability. Supplemental · importance 3.4

Work activities

• Manage food service operations or parts of operations.
• Clean food preparation areas, facilities, or equipment.
• Monitor food services operations to ensure procedures are followed.
• Perform human resources activities.
• Train food preparation or food service personnel.
• Cut cooked or raw foods.
• Prepare foods for cooking or serving.
• Record operational or production data.
• Plan menu options.
• Balance receipts.
• Communicate with customers to resolve complaints or ensure satisfaction.
• Inspect facilities, equipment or supplies to ensure conformance to standards.
• Maintain food, beverage, or equipment inventories.
• Coordinate activities of food service staff.
• Estimate supplies, ingredients, or staff requirements for food preparation activities.
• Coordinate timing of food production activities.
• Present food or beverage information or menus to customers.
• Assist customers with seating arrangements.
• Process customer bills or payments.
• Order materials, supplies, or equipment.
• Schedule dining reservations.
• Schedule equipment maintenance.
• Evaluate quality of materials or products.

Knowledge, skills & abilities

O*NET importance rating, from 1 (not important) to 5 (extremely important).

Knowledge

Transferable skills

Abilities

Essential skills

Skills in demand

Skills employers ask for in job postings for this occupation (Lightcast), with whether each is a common or specialized skill.

• Instructing Specialized Skill
• Deductive Reasoning Common Skill
• Active Listening Common Skill
• Speech Recognition Specialized Skill
• English Language Common Skill
• Reading Comprehension Common Skill
• Time Management Common Skill
• Social Perceptiveness Common Skill
• Negotiation Common Skill
• Learning Strategies Specialized Skill
• Critical Thinking Common Skill
• Writing Common Skill
• Visualization Specialized Skill
• Systems Analysis Specialized Skill
• Microsoft Word Common Skill
• Microsoft Project Specialized Skill
• Microsoft PowerPoint Common Skill
• Microsoft Outlook Common Skill
• Microsoft Excel Common Skill
• Mathematics Common Skill
• Information Ordering Specialized Skill
• Inductive Reasoning Common Skill
• Complex Problem Solving Common Skill
• Active Learning Common Skill
• Finger Dexterity Common Skill
• Psychology Specialized Skill
• Foreign Language Common Skill
• Microsoft Publisher Specialized Skill
• Microsoft Dynamics Specialized Skill
• Evernote Specialized Skill
• Depth Perception Common Skill
• ADP Workforce Now Specialized Skill
• Telecommunications Specialized Skill
• Chemistry Specialized Skill
• Physics Specialized Skill
• Geography Specialized Skill
• Biology Specialized Skill
• Equipment Maintenance Specialized Skill
• Equipment Selection Specialized Skill
• Project Management Software Specialized Skill

Showing the top 40 of 45.

Tools & technology

Work context

How characteristic each condition is of the job, on O*NET's 1–5 context scale (higher = more present in day-to-day work). Each condition links to how it varies across all occupations.

How to get in

Job zone

Zone 2 — Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed

Education

Usually requires a high school diploma or GED, though some occupations may not.

Typical entry-level education

High school diploma or equivalent · BLS, the typical path — not a requirement

Related experience

Some occupations may need little or no previous experience; others require several months to a year of experience. For example, landscaping and groundskeeping workers might require very little training or previous experience, while agricultural equipment operators can benefit from on-the job training.

Preparation level

SVP (Below 6.0) — total schooling plus on-the-job experience.

What to study: Culinary, Entertainment, and Personal Services , Family and Consumer Sciences/Human Sciences . Fields of study crosswalked to this occupation (NCES CIP–SOC), not a requirement.

Education of current workers

Share of people in this occupation at each level of education.

Interests & work styles

The interests and personal qualities O*NET associates with people who do this work.

Career interests (Holland / RIASEC)

Interest areas

Work styles

Wages & employment

U.S. · annual wages (BLS OEWS)

Industries that employ this occupation

Where these workers are employed, by number of jobs (national, BLS OEWS). Pay shown is the occupation's national median, not industry-specific.

Where this work is most concentrated

Industries where this occupation is far more common than in the economy as a whole. The location quotient is how many times more concentrated it is here (a value of 5 means five times its economy-wide share).

Related occupations

Part of the Hospitality, Events, & Tourism career cluster.

• First-Line Supervisors of Entertainment and Recreation Workers, Except Gambling Services · 39-1014.00 Compare →
• First-Line Supervisors of Housekeeping and Janitorial Workers · 37-1011.00 Compare →
• First-Line Supervisors of Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Workers · 45-1011.00 Compare →
• First-Line Supervisors of Non-Retail Sales Workers · 41-1012.00 Compare →
• First-Line Supervisors of Production and Operating Workers · 51-1011.00 Compare →
• First-Line Supervisors of Office and Administrative Support Workers · 43-1011.00 Compare →
• First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers · 41-1011.00 Compare →
• First-Line Supervisors of Mechanics, Installers, and Repairers · 49-1011.00 Compare →
• First-Line Supervisors of Passenger Attendants · 53-1044.00 Compare →
• First-Line Supervisors of Helpers, Laborers, and Material Movers, Hand · 53-1042.00 Compare →
• First-Line Supervisors of Material-Moving Machine and Vehicle Operators · 53-1043.00 Compare →
• First-Line Supervisors of Personal Service Workers · 39-1022.00 Compare →

Side-by-side comparisons place two occupations’ pay, preparation, skills, and AI exposure on the same page — same data, same scale, no forecast.

What you can do with this

Options the data surfaces for First-Line Supervisors of Food Preparation and Serving Workers — not advice or a forecast. Each is a real cross-link you can follow into the evidence.

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.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
• BLS Employment Projections 2024–2034 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27) Anthropic
• Microsoft “Working with AI” working-with-ai Microsoft Research
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic
• AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE) Felten, Raj & Seamans academic
• ILO / Gmyrek et al. GenAI exposure gradient 2025 International Labour Organization
• IBS O*NET-SOC ↔ ISCO-08 occupation crosswalk 2022 Institute for Structural Research (IBS)
• Frey & Osborne (2013) frey-osborne-automation academic
• Dingel & Neiman (2020) dingel-neiman-workathome academic

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

@misc{singulariki-role-35-1012-00,
  title  = {First-Line Supervisors of Food Preparation and Serving 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/roles/role-35-1012-00}
}