Career Explorer Food and hospitality
Human edge, growing
Fast food and counter workers
Perform duties such as taking orders and serving food and beverages. Serve customers at counter or from a steam table. May take payment. May prepare food and beverages.
More resilient than most: more resilient than 79% of the 831 careers we score. AI exposure is low (the Bureau of Labor Statistics rates it moderate), and US jobs are projected to change by +5.8% by 2035, faster than average.
AI struggles with much of this work, and US employers are expected to hire more people into it than average.
- Median pay (2025)
- $31,200
- Job growth to 2035
- +5.8%
- Openings a year
- 827,000
- People doing it (2025)
- 3.9 million
- Usual route in
- No formal credential, then short on-the-job training
Where people already use AI for this work
- Prepare foods or beverages
- Execute financial transactions
- Provide information to guests, clients, or customers
From Microsoft Research, Working with AI (2025).
Work AI rarely helps with
- Provide food or beverage services
- Clean tools, equipment, facilities, or work areas
- Clean workpieces, finished products, or other objects
What the work looks like
- Accept payment from customers, and make change as necessary.
- Serve customers in eating places that specialize in fast service and inexpensive carry-out food.
- Perform personnel activities, such as supervising and training employees.
- Request and record customer orders, and compute bills, using cash registers, multi-counting machines, or pencil and paper.
- Balance receipts and payments in cash registers.
From O*NET 31.0, US Department of Labor.
Careers using similar strengths, with a stronger outlook
- Dining room and cafeteria attendants and bartender helpersHuman edge, growing, Index 96, +5.3%
- Stockers and order fillersHuman edge, growing, Index 88, +8.9%
- Agricultural equipment operatorsHuman edge, growing, Index 98, +8.6%
- Laundry and dry-cleaning workersHuman edge, growing, Index 83, +4.3%
Also known as: Cafeteria Worker, Counter Worker, Food Service Worker, Server, Bobarista, Catering Barista, Cafe Server, Cafeteria Server.
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Sources: US Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Projections 2025 to 2035; O*NET 31.0; Microsoft Research (2025); Anthropic Economic Index (2026); Eloundou and colleagues (Science, 2024); Felten, Raj and Seamans (2023). How we score. Updated 12 October 2026.