All occupations · #80 of 1,410 by volume
Cooks, Restaurant
SOC 35-2014, in the food preparation and serving major group. 793 PERM filings in DOL's current disclosure window, 731 certified and 57 denied.
Median wage
$33,051
all PERM $103,272
Filings
793
#80 of 1,410
Approval
92.8%
field 96.8%
Median days
388
89 faster than the field
Median offered wage
$33,051above 15%
Approval rate
92.8%ahead of 25%
Median days to decision
388 daysahead of 83%
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
- LA COSECHA XVII, LLC 17 filings
- LA COSECHA XII, LLC 16 filings
- LA COSECHA XIX, LLC 15 filings
- LA COSECHA XV, LLC 12 filings
- Jareonsub Inc. 10 filings
- LA COSECHA II, LLC 10 filings
The employers with the most applications under this code. 80 of 793 filings, 10% of the total.
Firms filing it
- Aum Lee, LLC 175 filings · 100.0% approved
- White and Shepherd, LLP 40 filings · 100.0% approved
- Law Office of Li Wei P C 25 filings
- Law Offices of Yong Men, P.C. 16 filings
- Karam Law 10 filings
- Law Office of Jake Tuimaualuga 10 filings
The law firms named on the most applications under this code. 276 of 793 filings, 35% of the total.
Where the jobs are
- Georgia 173
- California 116
- Texas 60
- Massachusetts 44
- Oregon 35
- Colorado 30
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 458 of 793 filings.
Where this sits in the ranking
Ranked 80 of 1,410 by volume: 79 filed at least as many filings, and 1,330 filed no more.
- Just above
- Manicurists and Pedicurists 794 filings
- Just below
- Industrial Engineers 791 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.
- #108 Waiters and Waitresses 497 filings · 41 denied
- #51 Food Preparation Workers 1,284 filings · 45 denied
- #47 Chefs and Head Cooks 1,340 filings · 56 denied
- #118 Cooks, Fast Food 452 filings · 33 denied
- #127 Food Preparation Worker 406 filings · 36 denied
- #129 First-Line Supervisors of Food Preparation and Serving Workers 405 filings · 18 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