This post brought to you by National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation . The content and opinions expressed below are that of upstartHR.

So far we’ve seen data on career mobility, the power of commitment, and competitive compensation offered by the restaurant industry. Today we’re going to look at another intangible, but incredibly powerful, aspect of the employment relationship–pride.

A few facts:

• 92% of restaurant managers, 94% of business operations professionals, 92% of chefs and cooks, 80% of bartenders, 85% of hosts and hostesses and 75% of waitstaff, crew and dishwashers are proud to work in the restaurant industry,
• In a survey of teenagers (under 18) in the restaurant industry, 78% are proud to work in the industry, 89% are enrolled in school and 41% work fewer than 20 hours per week.
• More than 90% of restaurant employees ages 35-64 are proud to work in the industry and roughly 40% work at least 59 hours per week.

I can’t attest to the statistical significance, but the more time someone spends in the industry, the more pride they have in the kind of work they do. That aligns to more than just this specific type of career choice, but it’s something worth remembering. And those at the beginning of the “funnel” career-wise are just getting warmed up–that provides an opportunity to really engage them and leverage that pride.

I think some of us can easily fall into the stereotype at times that someone working in the restaurant industry is taking a “lesser” job. That’s certainly not true, especially based on what we see in the data here. This is a vibrant field with opportunities for long-term advancement and growth, and the employees are proud to be doing the work.

Check out the infographic below titled “A Career in Restaurants and Proud of It” from the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation.

What is your favorite statistic from the infographic?