Watch for and recognize security risks and thefts and know how to prevent or handle these situations.

“Watch for and recognize security risks and thefts and know how to prevent or handle these situations.” is a core task performed by Retail Salespersons. Among the occupation's 24 rated tasks, workers place it 7th by importance (#18 most important). About 83% of workers say it is relevant to their job.

This is a single occupation-specific task statement from O*NET. The figures below describe how central the task is to the job and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the task will be automated.

Work activities this task rolls up to

O*NET groups concrete tasks into broader work activities shared across many occupations.

• Monitor safety or security of work areas, facilities, or properties. in Monitoring Processes, Materials, or Surroundings

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E0. No direct exposure — current language models give little or no time savings on this task.

Exposure measures whether a model could meaningfully speed the task up — it is an estimate of overlap with model capabilities, not a measure of whether the work will be done by software. The study's intermediate score (β) for this task is 0.00. Automation potential label: T1.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Greet customers and ascertain what each customer wants or needs. · importance 4.8
• Recommend, select, and help locate or obtain merchandise based on customer needs and desires. · importance 4.7
• Maintain records related to sales. · importance 4.6
• Compute sales prices, total purchases, and receive and process cash or credit payment. · importance 4.6
• Prepare merchandise for purchase or rental. · importance 4.5
• Answer questions regarding the store and its merchandise. · importance 4.5
• Maintain knowledge of current sales and promotions, policies regarding payment and exchanges, and security practices. · importance 4.5
• Open and close cash registers, performing tasks such as counting money, separating charge slips, coupons, and vouchers, balancing cash drawers, and making deposits. · importance 4.4
• Prepare sales slips or sales contracts. · importance 4.3
• Describe merchandise and explain use, operation, and care of merchandise to customers. · importance 4.3
• Demonstrate use or operation of merchandise. · importance 4.3
• Ticket, arrange, and display merchandise to promote sales. · importance 4.3
• Inventory stock and requisition new stock. · importance 4.2
• Exchange merchandise for customers and accept returns. · importance 4.2

See all tasks on the Retail Salespersons page.

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-task-699,
  title  = {Watch for and recognize security risks and thefts and know how to prevent or handle these situations.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/tasks/task-699}
}