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Role hub · Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers

Busser: what the job is, what it pays, and how to get hired.

The work, the skills that matter, the tools in demand and the pay range, from U.S. government data, plus every TryHired page for the role.

Maid DizdarevicCareer coach · 8x LinkedIn Top Voice
Updated Nov 4, 2026 · Data: BLS OEWS May 2025 · O*NET 31.0
Pay ladder · select a percentile
Median percentile pay

Half of bussers earn more than this and half earn less.

Annual
$33,980
Hourly
$16.34
Source
BLS May 2025
Quick answer

Bussers facilitate food service. The median pay is $33,980 a year ($16.34 an hour) (BLS, May 2025). The most commonly reported education requirement is a high school diploma or equivalent (74% of workers surveyed by O*NET).

Median pay
$33,980
BLS May 2025
Employed in the U.S.
542,750
BLS May 2025
Preparation
Job Zone 1-2 of 5
very little to some preparation
Most common education
High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED)
74% of workers

Data Government data groups this job as Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers (O*NET-SOC 35-9011.00). Figures on this page are for that occupation.

Key facts

Bussers at a glance

  • Dining room and cafeteria attendants and bartender helpers in the United States earned a median annual wage of $33,980 in May 2025, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

    Source: BLS OEWS, May 2025

  • In its 2025–35 employment projections, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics lists no formal educational credential as the typical entry-level education for dining room and cafeteria attendants and bartender helpers in the United States.

    Source: BLS Employment Projections, 2025–35

  • BLS projects employment of dining room and cafeteria attendants and bartender helpers in the United States to grow 5.3% from 2025 to 2035, with about 95,300 openings a year on average, including replacement openings.

    Source: BLS Employment Projections, 2025–35

  • BLS estimates that less than 0.5% of dining room and cafeteria attendants and bartender helpers in the United States had the ability to telework in 2025, a preliminary estimate of whether the job allows it, not a count of remote jobs.

    Source: BLS Occupational Requirements Survey, 2025 preliminary

Explore the role

Every page for Bussers

ResumeBusser resume

Keywords, bullet formulas and the skills to prove.

Open →Interview questionsBusser interview questions

Questions with what they test, plus practice mode.

Open →Free toolCheck your resume

Parsed text, evidence per bullet, fixes first.

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The work

What bussers do day to day

Data Core tasks rated most important by workers in the role (O*NET).

  1. Serve ice water, coffee, rolls, or butter to patrons.
  2. Scrape and stack dirty dishes and carry dishes and other tableware to kitchens for cleaning.
  3. Wipe tables or seats with dampened cloths or replace dirty tablecloths.
  4. Set tables with clean linens, condiments, or other supplies.
  5. Greet and seat customers.
  6. Clean up spilled food or drink or broken dishes and remove empty bottles and trash.
  7. Maintain adequate supplies of items, such as clean linens, silverware, glassware, dishes, or trays.
  8. Locate items requested by customers.
Compare

Busser compared with other careers

Data Side-by-side comparisons of Busser with careers people weigh against it: pay, outlook, education, requirements and work environment, with no overall winner.

Skills that matter

Ranked by importance to the job

Data O*NET importance ratings. The first three are core.

CoordinationcoreService OrientationcoreActive ListeningcoreSocial PerceptivenessJudgment and Decision MakingSpeakingMonitoringCritical ThinkingReading Comprehension

Knowledge areas: Customer and Personal Service, Food Production, English Language, Sales and Marketing.

Tools and technology

Software bussers use

Data Examples reported for the role; employer demand flags from O*NET.

  • FacebookWeb page creation and editing softwareHot technology
  • Cafe Cartel SystemsPoint of sale POS software
  • Plexis Software Plexis POSPoint of sale POS software
  • RestaurantPlus PROPoint of sale POS software
  • Microsoft ExcelSpreadsheet softwareHot technology
  • Microsoft WindowsOperating system softwareHot technology

Also called: Barback, Buffet Attendant, Bus Boy, Bus Person, Dining Room Attendant.

Method

How this page is built

Tasks, skills, tools, education and related roles come from O*NET 31.0. Pay and employment come from the BLS OEWS May 2025 national estimates. The skill-match score is our calculation: Skill match is the cosine similarity of the two occupations' skill profiles: for each of 35 O*NET skills (10 essential, 25 transferable) we multiply importance by level and subtract the average across all occupations, then compare the direction of the two profiles. 100 means identical shape; 0 means unrelated or opposite (negative values are shown as 0). Only occupations that O*NET itself lists as related are compared.

What this page can't tell you
  • How a specific employer defines the job.
  • Pay for self-employed workers (OEWS covers employees).
  • Your own chances: data describes the occupation, not you.
Sources
  1. O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under the CC BY 4.0 license. TryHired selected, ranked and combined the data; O*NET is not responsible for these pages.
  2. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 estimates (public domain).

How TryHired builds this data: sources, methods and downloads. Spotted an error? Report a correction.