Restaurant employment spans more than 12.3 million jobs across food services and drinking places. The latest figures also show a large production workforce, relatively short average workweeks, modest union coverage, and substantial concentrations in cooking, serving, and supervisory roles. The statistics below separate the broad food-services sector from the narrower restaurant-and-other-eating-places occupation estimates and identify each measurement period.
Contents
- Employment scale and establishments
- Pay and working hours
- The restaurant workforce by occupation
- Supervisors, cooks, and front-of-house roles
- Productivity and business inputs
- Workplace safety and fatalities
- Union membership and representation
Employment scale and establishments
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), using NAICS 722 for food services and drinking places, counted 12,356.4 thousand all-employee jobs in April 2026. That is the broadest employment measure in this set and includes the full sector rather than only restaurant dining rooms. The same April 2026 measure counted 10,693.3 thousand production and nonsupervisory employee jobs.
The sector’s unemployment rate for people previously employed in food services and drinking places was 5.9% in April 2026. This measure describes the labor-market status of people who had worked in the sector previously; it is not a restaurant vacancy rate or a measure of all unemployed workers.
BLS establishment data show that the industry was overwhelmingly private in the third quarter of 2025. Private-industry establishments in food services and drinking places totaled 727,722. The same quarter included 518 local-government establishments, three state-government establishments, and 179 federal-government establishments.
| Establishment category | Third quarter 2025 establishments |
|---|---|
| Private industry | 727,722 |
| Local government | 518 |
| State government | 3 |
| Federal government | 179 |
These establishment counts describe locations or business units classified in the sector, while the April 2026 job counts describe employment. They should not be added together or treated as the same kind of measure.
Pay and working hours
Average hourly earnings for all employees in food services and drinking places were $21.82 in March 2026, according to BLS NAICS 722 data. Average weekly hours for all employees were 25.3 in the same month. Together, those figures indicate that the sector’s average workweek was well below 40 hours, although the statistics do not describe every employee’s schedule.
For production and nonsupervisory employees, average hourly earnings were $20.05 and average weekly hours were 23.9 in March 2026. These are separate averages for a different employee group, so they should not be compared as if they represented identical populations.
BLS reported 2025 median weekly earnings of $731 for full-time workers in the sector. Median weekly earnings were $769 for union members and $766 for workers represented by unions. Nonunion workers had median weekly earnings of $729. The union-member and union-represented categories are not interchangeable: representation can include workers covered by a union contract who are not union members.
The weekly-earnings figures are medians for full-time workers in 2025, whereas the hourly-earnings and weekly-hours figures are averages for March 2026. Because the populations and periods differ, the values are best used as separate reference points for compensation and scheduling rather than as a single pay calculation.
The restaurant workforce by occupation
The BLS 2024 occupation figures for NAICS 722 show how many jobs sit in the major food-preparation and serving groups. Combined food preparation and serving workers, including fast food, numbered 3,297,540 employed people. Waiters and waitresses numbered 1,976,940, while restaurant cooks numbered 1,281,780.
Fast-food cooks numbered 646,740, and chefs and head cooks numbered 91,660. First-line supervisors and managers of food preparation and serving workers numbered 982,700. These figures provide a broad view of the occupation mix across the food-services and drinking-places sector.
The narrower BLS Restaurant and Other Eating Places OEWS data also provide a detailed 2024 occupation profile. Cooks and food preparation workers numbered 2,365,160. Within that data, broad cooks occupations numbered 1,928,670; fast-food cooks numbered 652,220; restaurant cooks numbered 1,191,050; and short-order cooks numbered 77,210.
Food preparation workers numbered 436,500 in the same Restaurant and Other Eating Places OEWS data. Fast-food and counter workers numbered 3,060,960, while bartenders numbered 319,880. Waiters and waitresses numbered 1,830,190 in this narrower occupation dataset.
The two waiter counts are not duplicates to combine: 1,976,940 is the 2024 BLS NAICS 722 figure, while 1,830,190 is the 2024 Restaurant and Other Eating Places OEWS figure. Their different labels and coverage explain why both are retained.
Supervisors, cooks, and front-of-house roles
Supervisory employment is a substantial part of restaurant operations. The broad NAICS 722 occupation measure counted 982,700 first-line supervisors and managers of food preparation and serving workers in 2024. The Restaurant and Other Eating Places OEWS measure counted 906,050 first-line supervisors of food preparation and serving workers in 2024. As with the waiter figures, these are separate measures with different coverage and should not be added.
Several operational roles are reported separately in the Restaurant and Other Eating Places OEWS data. Dining room and cafeteria attendants and bartender helpers numbered 314,670 in 2024. Dishwashers numbered 345,240, and hosts and hostesses in restaurants, lounges, and coffee shops numbered 371,630.
The same source counted 52,850 food preparation and serving workers in all other categories, 49,570 bakers, and 2,570 butchers and meat cutters. Food servers in nonrestaurant settings numbered 12,870. Those figures help distinguish restaurant-floor staffing from adjacent preparation and service occupations included in the occupation classification.
The category boundaries matter for operational planning. A restaurant may employ cooks, counter workers, waiters, hosts, dishwashers, bartenders, helpers, and supervisors, but the BLS categories are statistical groupings rather than a staffing template for a particular concept. The reported counts describe employment in 2024, not the number of workers a restaurant should schedule in any one shift.
Productivity and business inputs
The BLS NAICS 722 productivity measures describe change during 2024. Total factor productivity in food services and drinking places declined 0.5%. Over the same period, output rose 1.2% and combined inputs rose 1.7%.
Capital input increased 1.8% in 2024, while labor input increased 0.4%. Labor productivity, measured as output per hour, increased 1.6%. These measures use different concepts: total factor productivity compares output with combined inputs, while labor productivity relates output to hours of labor.
| BLS NAICS 722 measure | Change in 2024 |
|---|---|
| Total factor productivity | -0.5% |
| Output | +1.2% |
| Combined inputs | +1.7% |
| Capital input | +1.8% |
| Labor input | +0.4% |
| Labor productivity, output per hour | +1.6% |
The pattern indicates that output and labor productivity both increased in 2024, while total factor productivity decreased. It does not establish why those movements occurred, and the figures should not be turned into an unsupported estimate of an individual restaurant’s sales or staffing efficiency.
Workplace safety and fatalities
BLS occupational injury and illness measures for food services and drinking places recorded 2.4 total recordable cases per 100 full-time workers in 2024. Cases involving days away from work, job restriction, or transfer were 1.0 per 100 full-time workers.
Within that combined category, cases involving days away from work were 0.7 per 100 full-time workers, and cases involving days of job transfer or restriction were 0.3 per 100 full-time workers. These are incidence rates, not counts of individual incidents across every restaurant.
The supplied BLS fatality figures are from earlier years. The sector recorded 145 fatalities in 2021 and 144 fatalities in 2022. Those counts are historical measurements and should not be presented as current-year fatality totals or as a forecast.
Union membership and representation
Union coverage was limited in the 2025 BLS figures for food services and drinking places. Union membership among wage and salary workers was 1.8%, while union representation was 2.2%.
The earnings figures provide context without erasing the distinction between membership and representation. In 2025, median weekly earnings were $769 for union members, $766 for workers represented by unions, and $729 for nonunion workers. Median weekly earnings for all full-time workers were $731.
These statistics describe reported medians and shares for 2025. They do not demonstrate that union status caused a particular earnings outcome, and they do not provide a breakdown by restaurant concept, region, tenure, occupation, or employee schedule. For restaurant operations, they are best read as sector-level context alongside the employment, pay, hours, productivity, and safety measures above.