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Service and sales workers · code 5212

Street food salespersons

Street food salespersons prepare and sell, or sell previously prepared hot or cold foods and beverages ready for immediate consumption in streets and public places such as stations, cinemas or theatres. Tasks include - (a) obtaining permission or a licence, where required, to sell food and drinks on the street or in a public place; (b) obtaining food and drinks for sale; (c) preparing, either beforehand or on the spot, food and drinks for sale; (d) loading and unloading, pushing, pedalling or carrying handcarts, trucks, trays or baskets to bring food and drinks to the desired place in the street, or to public places such as stations or cinemas; (e) displaying and selling food and drinks and accepting payment. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Hawker (food) - Street food vendor Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Cook - 5120 - Food service counter attendant - 5246 - Fast food preparer - 9411 - Street vendor (excluding food) - 9520 Notes Vendors from street and market stalls of fresh food products not intended for immediate consumption (such as fruit, vegetables, meat and dairy products) are classified in Unit Group 5211: Stall and Market Salespersons. Vendors from street and market stalls of a variety of prepared meals and food items for immediate consumption are classified in Unit Group 5246: Food Service Counter Attendants. Vendors in streets and public places of food and beverages for immediate consumption from pushcarts, trucks, trays or baskets are classified in Unit Group 5212: Street Food Salespersons. Vendors in streets and public places of non-food items (or of pre-packaged non-perishable food items such as confectionery) from pushcarts, trucks, trays or baskets are classified in Unit Group 9520: Street Vendors (excluding Food). Workers who prepare simple food items for immediate consumption, such as hamburger cooks, but have limited direct contact with clients, are classified in Unit Group 9411: Fast Food Preparers. If adapting these categories to national circumstances please note that the aim of separately identifying vendors of food items for immediate consumption is to ensure that jobs that require skills in service, basic preparation and hygienic handling of food are identified. Food service counter attendants generally serve a wider range of more elaborate products and meals than street food salespersons and do not generally transport food using, or sell food from, equipment such as handcarts, bicycles or baskets.

None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count. It ranks 174 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • street food vendor

Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.

77.5
Holds up
against AI
Not Exposed

AI could take on 22.5 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 22.5 = 77.5

That's the whole sum, and you can check it against the ILO's study.

39.4
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, averaged across 2 US jobs

17.5
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 21.4 · hand skill 17.9 · cramped spaces 13.2 · averaged

Kind of hands-on work · hands-on under 50 Less than half hands-on

Less than half of this job is hands-on. Robots still matter, but for a smaller part of the work, so we don't sort it any further.

estimated O*NET 31.0 BLS occupational crosswalk chain ISCO-08 to 2010 SOC (Aug 2012, rev. Jun 2015); 2010 to 2018 SOC (Nov 2017); O*NET-SOC 2019 taxonomy data 0.7-work-setting measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement

What this number leaves out This job rates 39.4 out of 100 for how hands-on it is. The score above only looks at AI tools, not robots, but for work this far from the physical that matters less.

The tasks behind the score

The score is the average of these. A job is really a bundle of tasks, and an average can hide how uneven that bundle is.

The task AI could do most of scores 36.3, while the average is 22.5. A big gap means some of this job is wide open to AI and some of it barely at all. That's quite different from a job where everything sits somewhere in the middle, even when the averages match.

  1. 36.3

    Displaying and selling food and drinks and accepting payment.

    Low
  2. 30.5

    Obtaining permission or a licence, where required, to sell food and drinks on the street or in a public place

    Low
  3. 21.5

    Preparing, either beforehand or on the spot, food and drinks for sale

    Very Low
  4. 14.3

    Obtaining food and drinks for sale

    Very Low
  5. 9.8

    Loading and unloading, pushing, pedalling or carrying handcarts, trucks, trays or baskets to bring food and drinks to the desired place in the street, or to public places such as stations or cinemas

    Very Low

5 tasks · the High to Very Low labels are the ILO's

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.7-work-setting

Helped, or replaced?

The score above can't tell a tool that makes you faster from one that does the task instead of you. Jobs and Skills Australia looked at those two things separately, and this is their result, matched to this job.

One Australian job matches this one closely, so this is about as reliable as it gets here.

AI helps you
61
AI does it for you
42

Helping wins by 19 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 6217

Compared with similar jobs

There are 39 jobs in the “Service and sales workers” group, averaging 74.3. This one is above that.