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Service and sales workers · code 5131

Waiters

Waiters serve food and beverages at tables in dining and drinking places, clubs, institutions and canteens, on board ships and on passenger trains. Tasks include - (a) setting tables with clean linen, cutlery, crockery and glassware; (b) greeting customers and presenting them with menus and beverage lists; (c) advising on food and beverage choices; (d) taking orders for food and drinks and passing orders to kitchen or bar staff; (e) serving food and beverages to clients at tables; (f) clearing tables and returning dishes and cutlery to the kitchen; (g) presenting bills, accepting payment and operating point-of-sales machines and cash registers. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Sommelier - Waiter Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Café manager - 1412 - Restaurant manager - 1412 - Bartender - 5132 Notes Operators of small cafés, restaurants and bars for whom the management and supervision of staff is not a significant component of the work are classified in Unit Groups 5120: Cooks, 5131: Waiters or 5132: Bartenders, depending on the main tasks performed.

A few tasks are affected, but the heart of the job isn't. It ranks 224 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • waiter/waitress
  • restaurant host/restaurant hostess

Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.

71.9
Holds up
against AI Minimal Exposure

AI could take on 28.1 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 28.1 = 71.9

That's the whole sum, and you can check it against the ILO's study.

48.2
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, averaged across 2 US jobs

26.4
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 32.1 · hand skill 35.7 · cramped spaces 11.4 · averaged

Kind of hands-on work · hands-on under 50 Less than half hands-on

Less than half of this job is hands-on. Robots still matter, but for a smaller part of the work, so we don't sort it any further.

estimated O*NET 31.0 BLS occupational crosswalk chain ISCO-08 to 2010 SOC (Aug 2012, rev. Jun 2015); 2010 to 2018 SOC (Nov 2017); O*NET-SOC 2019 taxonomy data 0.7-work-setting measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement

What this number leaves out This job rates 48.2 out of 100 for how hands-on it is. The score above only looks at AI tools, not robots, but for work this far from the physical that matters less.

The tasks behind the score

The score is the average of these. A job is really a bundle of tasks, and an average can hide how uneven that bundle is.

The task AI could do most of scores 51.5, while the average is 28.1. A big gap means some of this job is wide open to AI and some of it barely at all. That's quite different from a job where everything sits somewhere in the middle, even when the averages match.

  1. 51.5

    Presenting bills, accepting payment and operating point of sales machines and cash registers.

    Medium
  2. 40.5

    Taking orders for food and drinks and passing order to kitchen or bar staff

    Low
  3. 33

    Greeting customers and presenting them with menus and beverage lists

    Low
  4. 33

    Advising on food and beverage choices

    Low
  5. 17

    Serving food and beverages to clients at tables

    Very Low
  6. 13.5

    Setting tables with clean linen, cutlery, crockery and glassware

    Very Low
  7. 8

    Clearing tables and returning dishes and cutlery to kitchen

    Very Low

7 tasks · the High to Very Low labels are the ILO's

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.7-work-setting

Helped, or replaced?

The score above can't tell a tool that makes you faster from one that does the task instead of you. Jobs and Skills Australia looked at those two things separately, and this is their result, matched to this job.

2 Australian jobs match this one, and we've simply averaged them. Treat the numbers as a rough guide.

AI helps you
45
AI does it for you
25.5

Helping wins by 19.5 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 4312, 4315

Compared with similar jobs

There are 39 jobs in the “Service and sales workers” group, averaging 74.5. This one is below that.