Barista
AI displacement risk
8%
Range 6.23–10.41%
Barista has 16% AI task overlap and 30% human bottleneck protection — lower risk than 66% of occupations in the live market. Current AI capabilities have limited overlap with core tasks.
Service & Sales Workers·SGD 2,064/mo (1,400–2,600)·~2.6K workers in SG·Updated 2026-06-11
Structural pressure, not a prediction of job loss. Displacement tends to arrive through slower hiring, wage compression and role redesign before layoffs.
Why This Score
16% of tasks overlap with current AI
30% human advantage from judgment & presence
49% demand buffer from the local labour market
AI usage 1pp below theoretical exposure
These factors interact with each other — the final score is not a simple sum of these bars.
How much AI overlaps with this job's tasks, offset by human advantages and local demand. Score stability: watch. How this works
Tasks AI can handle
With 16% AI task overlap (based on Felten AIOE, Anthropic Economic Index, Eloundou GPT exposure, and ILO occupational exposure), the Barista tasks most exposed include: reservation management, menu recommendations, order processing, loyalty program tracking, and basic customer query handling via chatbots.
- • Accept payment from customers, and make change as necessary.
- • Serve customers in eating places that specialize in fast service and inexpensive carry-out food.
- • Request and record customer orders, and compute bills, using cash registers, multi-counting machines, or pencil and paper.
O*NET tasks for this occupation with the most observed AI usage (Anthropic task data).
What AI can't do here
At 30% human bottleneck protection, the tasks that remain hardest to automate for Barista include: genuine hospitality and warmth, reading customer moods, handling complaints gracefully, creating memorable experiences, and adapting service to cultural expectations.
Main insulation channels: Non-routine work + Accountability for others — the work-context dimensions behind this occupation's human bottleneck.
Skills to focus on
Brynjolfsson et al. (2023) found customer service agents using AI saw +14% productivity, with the biggest gains among junior workers — AI compressed the experience gap.
Sources: Felten AIOE (2021), Anthropic Economic Index (2026), Eloundou GPT Exposure (Science, 2024), ILO GenAI (2025), Pizzinelli et al. bottleneck model. Full methodology.
Singapore Now
Current labour market conditions and how they affect this role.
Cooling, but not collapsing. Vacancies are softer, yet retrenchment remains low and hiring still exceeds resignations.
Vacancy
3.1%
↓ 11.4% YoY
Hiring
2.6%
vs 1.6% resign
Retrenchment
1.5
per 1,000 · low
Re-entry
78.5%
find work in 12mo· -1.6pp
Clerical, Sales & Service Workers · 2025 Q4
Top Industries
Industry vacancy overlays use the latest published detailed cross-tab, which can lag the main labour monitor.
What You Can Do
Barista has some offset potential, but it depends on transition pathways holding up in practice and on workers clearing the main switching frictions.
Published transition support
Related roles you could transition to
Similarity-basedCompare within Service & Sales Workers
See how this compares to similar occupations
Compare with... →Classification
Higher risk than 34% of occupations · V7 structural score
Raw scores
AIOE -0.727 · θ 0.654 · C-AIOE -0.605
Stability
watch · Optimistic 5% · Pessimistic 13%
Score range (best/worst case)
Exposure 12–19% · Net risk 6.23–10.41%
Scoring basis
V7 structural score. Uses task-concentration-weighted exposure, human bottleneck, and demand resilience. V6 baseline fields are retained for release-to-release comparison.-0.4pp versus retained V6 baseline.
Wage range (SGD/mo)
25th 1,400 · Median 2,064 · 75th 2,600
Evidence & sources
Data matching
direct · SSOC 51322
Real-world AI usage: -1% vs estimated
Data quality
88% · Matching 1.00 · Market data 0.70 · Freshness 0.84
100% weighted task match · 0% effective coverage
AI overlap by data source
Weights: aioe 24% · anthropic 26% · eloundou 25% · ilo 26%
Tools & offset factors
What helps
- Nearby moves and published transition support look reasonably strong.
What could slow it down
- Current demand support is thin, so offsets may take longer to show up.
Worker profile & local context
- Vacancy rate is 3.1% and fell by 0.2 points from last quarter.
- Hiring read: recruitment is running above resignation (2.6% vs 1.6%).
- Retrenchment was low at 1.5 per 1,000 employees.
- 78.5% of retrenched workers re-entered employment within 12 months.
Worker profile
Gender mix
38% male / 62% femalePublished Singapore worker composition for the detailed occupation family 51 Personal Service Workers.
Employment structure
Employee-heavy91% employees, 9% employers or self-employed workers.
Work arrangement
Part-time meaningful24% part-time and 76% full-time in 2025.
Age profile
Older-skewing17% aged 15 to 29, 32% aged 30 to 49, and 51% aged 50 or older.
Qualification mix
Non-degree heavySecondary 26%; Post-secondary 25%.
Gross wage by sex
Female median 19% higherPublished June 2024 gross wage medians: male $1,810, female $2,149.
Where this work is concentrated
Top planning areas
Woodlands, Tampines, Yishun22% of workers in this occupation group live in these three planning areas.
Residential concentration
Moderately clustered35% live across the top five planning areas in the 2020 Census.
Commute pattern
Mid-range commutesEstimated average commute 33.8 minutes. 28% take 46 minutes or more.
Role profile
How this role's work breaks down across key dimensions. This is a general profile, not an individual measurement.
Workflow dimensions (0 = low, 1 = high)
How this changes by career stage
Senior workers benefit from institutional knowledge and judgment that AI cannot replicate. Entry-level roles have higher task overlap with AI.
Frequently asked questions
Will AI replace Barista?
Barista has 16% AI task overlap and 30% human bottleneck protection — lower risk than 66% of occupations in the live market. Current AI capabilities have limited overlap with core tasks. Net displacement risk: 8% (Low). Median wage: SGD 2,064/month.
What is the AI risk score for Barista?
Barista has an AI displacement risk of 8%, rated Low. AI task overlap: 16%. Human advantage: 30%. Local demand buffer: 49%.
What career transitions are available for Barista?
Barista has modeled transition pathways to related occupations. The strongest adjacent pathway is Bartender/Mixologist, based on skill and wage similarity (model-estimated). Transition scoring accounts for wage preservation, training ease, and destination quality.
How does Barista salary compare in the live market?
Barista earns a median gross wage of SGD 2,064/month in the live market (25th-75th percentile: SGD 1,400-2,600). This is 54% below median across all 562 scored occupations, and 31% below group median within Service & Sales Workers occupations.