Pastry Chef Job Market Outlook

---

A pastry chef is a professional who works in a restaurant, hotel or bakery and prepares amazing desserts for you to enjoy. A pastry chef is more than a simple cook, he is an artist creating delicacies that could be easily exhibited as works of art. This professional creates top of the line desserts for various institutions and environments such as cafes, bakeries, casinos, restaurants, hotels and many more. Pastry chefs must not be confused with bakers, even though sometimes they are baking cookies or bread. A patissier will prepare all kinds of desserts, not only baked goods.

Salary Expectations

We’ve briefly presented you what a pastry chef does; now we’re going to analyze the job outlook for pastry chefs. Let’s start with salary. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average salary for chef and head cooks was $42,480 per year in 2012. Those working in the traveler accommodation field have earned $48,210 per year and those working in restaurants have received $39,790 per annum. The lowest salary reported was $24,530, while the highest salary was $74,120.

Salaries depend mostly on your experience, on the success of the restaurant or the sweet shop, your location, the type of employer and your certification. A retail grocery will pay a pastry chef between $10.22 and $14.58 per hour and a food service will pay him between $9.81 and $13.81 hourly. The hotels will pay between $9.98 and $13.86 per hour and the bakeries will pay between $9.94 and $14.05 hourly. Finally, restaurants are going to offer between $9.94 and $14.05 per hour.

As mentioned before, the salary also ranges depending on your location. Here are the annually salaries for pastry chefs in some of the top cities in the United States. In Orlando, you will be earning between $32,492 and $51,612 and in Los Angeles, your salary will range between $39,305 and $55,955. In Chicago, the salaries for a pastry chef are between $32,000 and $43,916. Finally, there is San Francisco with a range of $30,837 – $54,045 and New York City with salaries between $39,235 and $65,000.

Job Outlook for Pastry Chefs

The demands for head cooks and chefs will increase by 5% until 2022. This growth is a bit slow as compared to the other related occupations. Since the projections also show that there will be a development in the incomes and the population, the specialists are also expecting a greater demand in 5-star establishments and high-quality dishes. However, restaurants on average are more prone to employ food service workers and cooks instead of high-paid head cooks and chefs. Still, this must not worry you, as there is numerous upscale restaurants out there that are looking forward to hiring experienced pastry chefs.

Thus, the job outlook for pastry chefs tells us that you have to focus greatly on your experience and certifications in order to be able to obtain a high-paid job. The competition is quite strong, so you must own a mixture of creativity, previous work experience and business skills.