All occupations · #194 of 1,410 by volume
Combined Food Preparation and Serving Workers, Including Fast Food
SOC 35-3021, in the food preparation and serving major group. 222 PERM filings in DOL's current disclosure window, 116 certified and 105 denied.
Median wage
$19,032
all PERM $103,272
Filings
222
#194 of 1,410
Approval
52.5%
field 96.8%
Median days
480
3 slower than the field
Median offered wage
$19,032above 0.2%
Approval rate
52.5%ahead of 0.2%
Median days to decision
480 daysahead of 39%
Who files this job
The sponsors and firms with the most PERM filings under this code, and the states the work sits in.
Sponsors filing it
- Penn Street Pizza, Inc. 101 filings · 0.0% approved
- Chix and Bix LLC 52 filings · 100.0% approved
- Midnight Sun Subway 23 filings
- MAC Pizza Management, Inc. 19 filings
- NEK Pizza Enterprises Inc 6 filings
- Exceptional Hospitality, Inc. 4 filings
The employers with the most applications under this code. 205 of 222 filings, 92% of the total.
Firms filing it
- Ruby Law Group LLC 23 filings
- DELAFUENTE LAW LLC 4 filings
- Law Office of Klaudia Hall, Esq. 4 filings
- American Immigration Law, PLLC 1 filings
- Quan Law Group, PLLC 1 filings
- Santos Law Firm PL 1 filings
The law firms named on the most applications under this code. 34 of 222 filings, 15% of the total.
Where the jobs are
- Pennsylvania 101
- South Carolina 58
- Alaska 25
- Texas 20
- New Jersey 6
- Oklahoma 3
The worksite state on the application, which is where the job is and not where the company is headquartered. Volume by state across everyone is on the state map. These 6 states cover 213 of 222 filings.
Where this sits in the ranking
Ranked 194 of 1,410 by volume: 193 filed at least as many filings, and 1,216 filed no more.
- Just above
- Lawyers 222 filings
- Just below
- Bioinformatics Scientists 221 filings
Other food preparation and serving roles
Occupations sharing this one's SOC major group, which is carried in the first two digits of the code. Wages inside a group still swing hard, because the group holds every seniority level and every metro.
- #200 Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers 218 filings · 3 denied
- #185 Chefs and Head Cooks 234 filings · 27 denied
- #142 Dishwashers 352 filings · 13 denied
- #129 First-Line Supervisors of Food Preparation and Serving Workers 405 filings · 18 denied
- #127 Food Preparation Worker 406 filings · 36 denied
- #268 Cooks, Institution and Cafeteria 130 filings · 5 denied
Reading the wage
This is the median wage employers committed to in federal filings for this occupation. It mixes every experience level and every metro, and it's a floor: the employer must offer at least the prevailing wage DOL determines for the occupation, level and county. Across all PERM filings the middle half of offered wages runs $45,178 to $141,357, so a figure inside that band is unremarkable whichever occupation it belongs to.
What these numbers don't say
- The code is the identity
- Two SOC codes can carry the same job title, so a title that looks duplicated on the ranking is two different occupations. Match on the code when you're checking a specific filing.
- A median isn’t an offer
- It's the middle of every wage committed to for this occupation across the country, entry level and principal alike. The same role's medians swing hard by worksite, which the state map shows directly.
- Approval isn’t about the occupation
- The denial rate moves with what happened in the filing rather than with the job title. The measured factors are on the denial risk page, published as separate rates.
- Nothing here is pending
- Every case in DOL's disclosure files carries a decision date, so a case still waiting is in none of these counts. Where the queue stands today is on the processing times page.
The window these figures cover
DOL's FY2026 Q3 and FY2025 Q4 and New Form FY2024 Q4 and FY2024 Q4 PERM disclosure files, unioned and de-duplicated by case number: 373,939 cases. Every case in them carries a decision, so nothing here counts what’s still pending. How each figure is built, and what it can and can't answer, is set out in the methodology.
Weighing an offer?
Compare it against this median, then check the state map, where the same occupation's medians swing hard by worksite.
Setting one?
All 1,410 occupations sort together on the wages page, and denial rates show how outcome moves with the offered wage.
Case data: DOL quarterly disclosure files (flag.dol.gov) · data through Jun 30, 2026 · quarterly
Employers and firms: Derived from the disclosure corpus · data through Aug 26, 2026 · rebuilt with each quarterly ingest