What Is The Yearly Wages Of Chefs And Head Cooks?
Knowing how much a chef earn in terms of annual salary is important before diving into pursuing career in chef. It is equally important for someone who is already in the chef career to know where he or she stands in terms of yearly earning with respect to the national statistic.
Other than the yearly wages of chef, you should also find out if chef wages has been on the rise or fall in the past couple of years. Besides, as a chef, you should also find out what the average annual increment is for chef wages. With that knowledge, you can know if your annual wages increment is on par with the national average.
The table below shows an estimate of chef and head cooks’ annual wages in May 2007. The data comes from the United States of Bureau of Labor Statistics under the Occupational Employment Statistics. For the validity of the data, you can go to this page (http://www.bls.gov) to verify the data.
Chef Annual Wages
The following is basically what the data in the table means:
- 10% of chefs earn less than $21,560 per year; therefore the remaining 90% of chefs earn more than $21,560 annually.
- 25% earn less than $28,020 annually; 75% earn more than $28,020 annually.
- 50% earn less than $37,160 annually; 50% earn more than $37,160 annually.
- 75% earn less than $49,790 annually; 25% earn more than $49,790 annually.
- 90% earn less than $64,550 annually; 10% earn more than $64,550 annually.
Therefore, if you make more than $65k annually as a chef, you are basically at the top 10% of the earning capability. I am guessing this group of elite chefs is what we call the Executive Chefs who normally shoulder heavy responsibilities such as overseeing the kitchen and managing chefs who work under them. They not only plan the menu and design recipe for the kitchen, they also manage the finances of certain department of the restaurant. Therefore, their higher annual wages are actually justified by the heavy workload that they have to carry in their day to day work.
If you are in the bottom 10% of chefs who are making less than $21,560 yearly, you are probably in bad luck or in the wrong establishment. Even a newly promoted chef is making more than that. I would suggest you to jump ship. If that’s not possible, consider talking to your boss about how you can get higher wages.
In terms of average annual wage increment, according to the United States Bureau of Labor, the average annual chef wages in the past 5 years starting from 2003 have been consistently rising in the range of 5% year to year. The average annual chef wages from 2006 to 2007 recorded the most significant growth which is 7%. For example, the average annual wages for chef and head cooks in May 2003 is $32,620 and the number has increased to $40,700 in May 2007. That’s an average increase of 6% or $2020 from year to year.
The conclusion is if you are still contemplating if chef career is the right career for you, what I can tell you is you definitely had made the correct choice in view of the positive salary growth for the past 4 years.
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