The Restaurant Industry: No Piece Of Cake For Its Women Workers

4:45 pm, February 14th | by Hillary Reinsberg

Working in the restaurant industry can be a thankless job for anyone, but for women, it can be especially rough. So before you throw a fit because the waitress didn’t bring your martini quickly enough…

A new study tells us exactly why women have it tougher in the food world. The three most interesting points:

1. Most “tipped workers” are women. Women make up 66 percent of restaurant workers who get paid through tips. As a tipped restaurant worker, the minimum wage is very low — $2.13 an hour, a number that’s been frozen for 20 years.

2. Women tend to get hired for lower-paying restaurant jobs. Only 19 percent of chefs are women. Even though they do most of the cooking at home! What’s up with that? And servers in high-end restaurants tend to skew more male, while women round out the jobs in quick serve and family style joints.

3. Sexual harassment. Around 37 percent of sexual harassment complaints come from within the food industry.

If you dine out for Valentine’s Day tonight, keep this in mind as you tip your server. Not to guilt trip you or anything.

TAGS: women food service industry | women in restaurant industry