Industry group, 4590A1
Miscellaneous Store Retailers (4594 and 4595 only)
401,170 people work in this industry in the US, at mean pay of $39,480 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: 188 million hours at what they cost. Not a forecast of savings.
- 30%
- 24%
- 46%
of the paid hours are within reach now in tasks people already bring to Claude. Another 21% 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, 2%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 21%. Today's estimate: 23%.
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 39 largest jobs hold 95% of the people.
| People | Pay here | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retail Salespersons | 168,590 | 19% | 68 million | $31K |
| First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers | 36,870 | 28% | 22 million | $44K |
| Cashiers | 43,270 | 19% | 17 million | $32K |
| Stockers and Order Fillers | 29,380 | 19% | 12 million | $34K |
| Customer Service Representatives | 6,930 | 64% | 9.3 million | $35K |
| General and Operations Managers | 17,720 | 23% | 8.4 million | $65K |
| Shipping, Receiving, and Inventory Clerks | 6,760 | 53% | 7.4 million | $36K |
| Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks | 3,020 | 78% | 4.9 million | $46K |
| Office Clerks, General | 3,820 | 54% | 4.3 million | $39K |
| Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand | 17,460 | 9% | 3.3 million | $33K |
| Data Entry Keyers | 1,000 | 96% | 2 million | $32K |
| Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products | 2,630 | 36% | 2 million | $49K |
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. 97 smaller jobs (19,310 people) count in every total but are not listed. Task data covers 98% 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.
- Maintain knowledge of current sales and promotions, policies regarding payment and exchanges, and security practices.Retail Salespersons20 million hours50% of the task within reach
- Maintain records related to sales.Retail Salespersons11 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Inventory stock and requisition new stock.Retail Salespersons9.6 million hours20% of the task within reach
- Establish credit policies and operating procedures.First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers7.2 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Open and close cash registers, performing tasks such as counting money, separating charge slips, coupons, and vouchers, balancing cash drawers, and making deposits.Retail Salespersons6.5 million hours20% of the task within reach
- Prepare sales slips or sales contracts.Retail Salespersons6.4 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Keep periodic balance sheets of amounts and numbers of transactions.Cashiers6.4 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Sell or arrange for delivery, insurance, financing, or service contracts for merchandise.Retail Salespersons5.7 million hours50% of the task within reach
- Plan budgets and authorize payments and merchandise returns.First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers5.3 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Compile and maintain non-monetary reports and records.Cashiers4.5 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.
Next to 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