Subsector, 445
Food and Beverage Retailers
3,246,380 people work in this industry in the US, at mean pay of $39,470 a year (BLS, May 2025). What follows is how much of their working time the best AI models could finish, when, and in which jobs and tasks. Estimates.
of the paid hours. Estimate.
a year: 1.3 billion hours at what they cost. Not a forecast of savings.
- 24%
- 19%
- 58%
of the paid hours are within reach now in tasks people already bring to Claude. Another 18% is within reach in tasks not yet seen there.
Across the US: 22% within reach now and 37% by the end of 2028, on the long-run pace at four in five.
Share of the paid hours within reach, now to 2030
What each choice means: , , , , . Every pace starts from .
How far this has come
With GPT-4, measured in March 2023, 0% of this industry's paid hours were within reach at . With Claude 3.7 Sonnet, measured in February 2025, 3%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 19%. Today's estimate: 20%.
A backcast: today's task data with the best model METR had measured by each date. It shows how fast the models have moved, not what anyone forecast at the time.
Where the hours are
Jobs by hours within reach now. The 29 largest jobs hold 95% of the people.
| People | Pay here | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cashiers | 933,680 | 19% | 359 million | $34K |
| Stockers and Order Fillers | 666,380 | 19% | 263 million | $36K |
| Customer Service Representatives | 100,530 | 64% | 135 million | $35K |
| First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers | 190,880 | 28% | 112 million | $50K |
| Retail Salespersons | 177,040 | 19% | 71 million | $35K |
| First-Line Supervisors of Food Preparation and Serving Workers | 35,250 | 40% | 30 million | $47K |
| General and Operations Managers | 54,810 | 23% | 26 million | $75K |
| Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks | 15,790 | 78% | 25 million | $40K |
| Shipping, Receiving, and Inventory Clerks | 20,950 | 53% | 23 million | $42K |
| First-Line Supervisors of Office and Administrative Support Workers | 29,400 | 35% | 21 million | $50K |
| Pharmacy Technicians | 37,870 | 26% | 20 million | $41K |
| Office Clerks, General | 17,360 | 54% | 20 million | $36K |
People: BLS counts for this industry, May 2025. Pay here: the median paid for the job in this industry, else its mean, else the national median. 126 smaller jobs (153,900 people) count in every total but are not listed. Task data covers 99% of the industry's people; the rest are in BLS "all other" groups with no task list, or in counts BLS does not publish.
The tasks with the most hours within reach by the end of 2028
Across the whole industry, on the chosen pace and reliability.
- Keep periodic balance sheets of amounts and numbers of transactions.Cashiers137 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Compile and maintain non-monetary reports and records.Cashiers98 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Calculate total payments received during a time period, and reconcile this with total sales.Cashiers65 million hours70% of the task within reach
- Determine proper storage methods, identification, and stock location, based on turnover, environmental factors, and physical capabilities of facilities.Stockers and Order Fillers49 million hours80% of the task within reach
- Develop new recipes for baked goods.Bakers42 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Requisition merchandise from supplier, based on available space, merchandise on hand, customer demand, or advertised specials.Stockers and Order Fillers38 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Establish credit policies and operating procedures.First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers37 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Recommend disposal of excess, defective, or obsolete stock.Stockers and Order Fillers30 million hours50% of the task within reach
- Receive and count stock items, and record data manually or on computer.Stockers and Order Fillers28 million hours30% of the task within reach
- Compute and record totals of transactions.Cashiers27 million hours100% of the task within reach
Scan a typical company in this industry
The industry's largest jobs, in the proportions BLS counts across the whole industry, at the pay it pays, run through the company scan. A starting point before you have a roster, or a benchmark for the one you have.
Inside this industry
Within reach now and by the end of 2028, long-run pace, four in five.
How it is built: BLS counts the people in each job in this industry; each job's tasks and their lengths give its share within reach at a date; the industry's share is those shares weighted by people. Value is pay times 1.43 for benefits and payroll costs. Seen in Claude use splits today's share by whether Anthropic saw people bring each task to Claude in 2025; other AI tools are not counted. How it works