Contents
- Food retail employment statistics: food and beverage store employment and establishments
- Food retail employment statistics by grocery and specialty food occupation
- Food retail employment statistics: occupation wages and store workforce hours
- Food retail employment statistics: workplace fatalities and injury rates
- Food retail employment: context within the food-system workforce
- Food retail employment: historical grocery workers and retail industry distribution
- Sources
Food retail employment statistics: food and beverage store employment and establishments
The clearest national measure of food retail jobs in these figures is the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) category for food and beverage stores, NAICS 445. It covers the store industry rather than every job involved in producing, transporting, or serving food. In October 2026, these stores employed 3,243,400 people, seasonally adjusted. That estimate is preliminary. A separate BLS count for September put production and nonsupervisory employment at 2,892,000, also preliminary. The figures refer to different months and employee groups, so they should not be treated as a same-month breakdown.
Private-industry food and beverage store establishments numbered 160,912 in the first quarter of 2026, a preliminary figure. The count was 160,771 in the second quarter of 2025, 161,396 in the third quarter, and 161,769 in the fourth quarter. These establishment counts describe operating units, not the number of companies or workers. The available quarters show an increase from Q2 to Q4 2025, followed by a slightly lower preliminary count in Q1 2026; they do not establish a longer-term trend.
Source: BLS, Food and Beverage Stores: NAICS 445.
Food retail employment statistics by grocery and specialty food occupation
The 2025 occupational estimates show that food and beverage stores employ people across customer service, stocking, supervision, food preparation, and skilled meat work. Cashiers were the largest of the selected groups, with 933,680 jobs. Stock clerks and order fillers accounted for 666,380, followed by first-line supervisors and managers of retail sales workers at 190,880. Food preparation workers numbered 187,430, while butchers and meat cutters totaled 103,440.
| Occupation in food and beverage stores | Employment, 2025 |
|---|---|
| Cashiers | 933,680 |
| Stock clerks and order fillers | 666,380 |
| First-line supervisors/managers of retail sales workers | 190,880 |
| Food preparation workers | 187,430 |
| Butchers and meat cutters | 103,440 |
These are occupation-specific estimates within the food and beverage store industry. They are not all the occupations in the industry, and they do not count every person who works with food elsewhere in the economy. In particular, restaurant employment and food manufacturing are outside this store-industry framing.
Source: BLS, Food and Beverage Stores: NAICS 445, Employment by Occupation, 2025.
Food retail employment statistics: occupation wages and store workforce hours
The 2025 wage estimates offer a closer look at differences among store occupations. Butchers and meat cutters had a median hourly wage of $18.57 and a mean hourly wage of $19.76. Their median annual wage was $38,630, compared with a mean annual wage of $41,100. Cashiers had a median hourly wage of $16.45 and a median annual wage of $34,220. Food preparation workers had a median hourly wage of $17.25. The median hourly wage for first-line retail sales supervisors and managers was $24.09, and their mean annual wage was $54,340. Stock clerks and order fillers had a median annual wage of $35,880.
Median and mean answer different questions: the median marks the midpoint of the wage distribution, while the mean is the arithmetic average. Annual and hourly figures are separate reported measures; annual wages should not be inferred by multiplying an hourly estimate by a presumed schedule.
For the broader store workforce, BLS reported preliminary average hourly earnings of $22.72 and average weekly hours of 31.6 for all food and beverage store employees in September 2026. For production and nonsupervisory employees, the corresponding preliminary measures were $19.28 per hour and 31.1 hours per week. These are averages for the stated employee groups, not standard schedules or individual earnings. The occupational wage estimates are for 2025, whereas these workforce averages are for September 2026.
Source: BLS, Food and Beverage Stores: NAICS 445, Earnings and Hours tables and Earnings by Occupation.
Food retail employment statistics: workplace fatalities and injury rates
BLS recorded 54 workplace fatalities in food and beverage stores in 2019, 72 in 2020, 66 in 2021, and 65 in 2022. These are annual counts, not rates adjusted for workforce size or hours. The sequence shows that the count rose from 2019 to 2020 and then fell in each of the next two years; it does not by itself explain why the numbers changed.
For 2024, the total recordable injury and illness case rate was 3.7 cases per 100 full-time workers. Within that total, cases involving days away from work, job restriction, or transfer had a rate of 2.4 per 100 full-time workers. The more specific rates were 1.3 for cases involving days away from work and 1.1 for cases involving job transfer or restriction. These categories describe recorded cases using the stated rate denominator; they are distinct from fatality counts.
The fatality series ends in 2022, while the injury and illness rates are from 2024. They should not be combined into a single-year safety measure.
Source: BLS, Food and Beverage Stores: NAICS 445, Work-related Fatalities and Injury and Illness tables.
Food retail employment: context within the food-system workforce
A broader USDA Economic Research Service measure places food wholesale and retail together. These activities accounted for 24.7% of U.S. food-system employment in 2023, down from 25.4% in 2010. USDA describes the combined activities as storing and preserving food for transport or purchase. Because wholesale and retail are grouped, these percentages cannot be read as the retail-store share alone.
Food services accounted for 51.5% of U.S. food-system employment in 2023, compared with 47.6% in 2010. This supplies context about another part of the food system; food services are not food retail employment. The two measures have different industry definitions, so they should not be used as a direct comparison of store jobs against restaurant jobs without further detail.
Source: USDA Economic Research Service, “Most employees in the U.S. food system are linked to food services”.
Food retail employment: historical grocery workers and retail industry distribution
A Census Bureau report offers a historical view of where retail workers worked in 2018. Its “retail workers” population is defined by three detailed occupations, and its figures cover civilian employed people age 16 and older. Across those occupations, 85.2% worked in the retail trade industry, while 10.8% worked in the combined category of arts, entertainment, and recreation, and accommodation and food services.
Cashiers in the report’s retail-worker group had a different distribution: 66.4% worked in retail trade, while 27.8% worked in that combined arts, entertainment, recreation, accommodation, and food-services category. This illustrates why occupation alone does not identify a worker’s industry. The figures are historical and refer to broad industry categories; they do not isolate grocery stores or describe today’s food and beverage store workforce.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Retail Workers: 2018, Figure 6.