Food Service Labor Force: Training

While the economics of running food service businesses seem to demand low pay scales, pushing more skilled workers “up or out,” there are many different training options. On-the-job training does not cost the same direct out-of-pocket expense as paying for college or a vocational school, although it does cost in terms of lower wages, at times, for longer years. This is how most food service workers have gained their skills historically. Only after World War II, when veterans returned from the war and loans for higher education were subsidized by the federal government to help former soldiers integrate back into the labor market, did we see the expansion of culinary schools. First, the Culinary Institute of America was extended, followed by an expansion of community college vocational training programs. Then, in the 1970s with changes in how Americans were eating, we began to see an expansion of privately owned culinary training institutions.