Facts

• In a 2009 report on the wages of chefs across the country, the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics determined the average salary in the profession to be $44,240 per year (this does not include celebrity chefs such as Emeril Lagasse or personal chefs that work for celebrities). Chefs in California earned average salaries that just edged out the country's median with an annual wage of $44,650, a difference of $410 per year.
  
  

Ranges

• Some of California's 10,290 chefs (as of May 2009) cooked up salaries far higher than the country's median. In the state's 90th percentile of earners, chefs earned $74,710 per year. On the opposite end of the scale, chefs in California's bottom 10th percentile of earners averaged $27,010 per year.
  
  

Considerations

• There is no single point of entry required to become a chef in California. Some chefs work their way up as cooking staff in a restaurant before they take over, others learn through on-the-job training from experienced chefs. Another option is to seek post-secondary education in the cooking field from organizations such as the American Culinary Federation. The ACF accredits hundreds of schools across the country, including more than 10 in California including Institute of Technology, Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts Pasadena, Diablo Valley College, Columbia College, City College of San Francisco and the International Culinary School at the Art Institute of California.
  
  

Outlook

• While the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics projects little to no growth in employment of chefs throughout the country until 2018, adding just 200 new jobs to the field, prospective California chefs should not lose hope. The BLS cites turnover in the field as the best opportunity to secure salaries by replacing outgoing or retiring chefs.