{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/cargo-and-freight-agents/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Cargo and Freight Agents",
    "soc_code": "43-5011",
    "category": "Office",
    "us_employment": 97670,
    "median_annual_wage": 52260
  },
  "verdict": "COOKED",
  "risk_resistance": 28,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 6,
    "embodiment": 6,
    "liability_shield": 3,
    "trust_premium": 6,
    "judgment_accountability": 7
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Rate-shopping across carriers, keying bills of lading and air waybills, filing ISF and AES entries, and sending tracking updates are all structured-field transactions that TMS and customs software already auto-populate from EDI feeds — the score sits at 6 rather than lower only because exception handling (rolled bookings, chassis shortages, hazmat paperwork rejections) still routes to a human phone call.",
    "embodiment": "Most of the shift is a desk, two monitors and a headset, but freight agents at terminals and forwarders do walk the dock or warehouse to count pieces, check seal numbers, weigh and measure pallets for dim-weight disputes, and photograph damaged cartons — occasional and on-site, which is why this is 6 and not 2, and nowhere near the driver or longshore work it sits next to.",
    "liability_shield": "No licence is required to book freight; the customs broker's licence, the carrier's operating authority, and the NVOCC's FMC bond sit with other parties, so a misdeclared commodity or late ISF filing becomes the broker's or shipper's penalty exposure, not the agent's — the 3 reflects that some employers prefer IATA dangerous-goods certification without it being a legal gate.",
    "trust_premium": "Repeat shippers do ask for their agent by name and reward someone who knows their seasonal volumes and which port they hate, but freight moves on rate and transit time, and accounts transfer between agents on a Monday without cargo stopping — that book of relationships is worth something but is not the product, hence 6.",
    "judgment_accountability": "Real calls get made — reroute an at-risk load, split a shipment, choose which of three delayed containers gets the expedited drayage — but they run inside published tariffs, service-level agreements and a supervisor's approval threshold for anything expensive, which puts this at the low end of genuine discretion rather than up with the people who own the P&L on the lane."
  },
  "rationale": "The core of this job — booking shipments, preparing bills of lading and customs paperwork, comparing carrier rates, tracking loads, and emailing status updates — is exactly the structured text-and-screen work that TMS platforms plus AI already handle end to end. What resists automation is the exception layer: a truck breaks down, a container is held at the port, a shipper needs a load re-routed tonight, and someone physically walks the dock to verify a discrepancy. That layer is real but thin, and it employs far fewer people than the booking-and-paperwork layer it sits on top of.",
  "outlook": "Headcount contracts substantially as TMS automation absorbs booking and documentation, leaving a smaller, better-paid tier of exception managers, licensed customs specialists, and account-owning brokers.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "CBP tightening 19 CFR 111.28 'responsible supervision and control' to specify that AI-prepared entry summaries and HTS classifications must be reviewed and personally signed by a licensed customs broker, with a named individual (not the corporate permit) on the filing. CBP's post-2022 broker modernization rulemaking already moved toward individual accountability and away from district permits; a follow-on rule or penalty case naming an individual broker for machine-generated misclassification would be the visible marker.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 6
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Enforcement of existing 49 CFR 172.704 / IATA DGR rules that a trained, named human must sign the Shipper's Declaration for Dangerous Goods — extended by carrier or insurer requirement to any AI-generated hazmat documentation. Airline dangerous-goods acceptance checklists already refuse machine-only declarations; a formal IATA DGR amendment stating a certified signatory must attest personally would harden it.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "UFLPA and sanctions-screening exposure making the human agent the accountable owner of admissibility calls: deciding whether a supplier trace is adequate, whether a load is diverted, whether a shipment is refused. If CBP detention volumes or OFAC penalties against forwarders keep rising and firms designate a named compliance signer per file, the surviving role owns consequential ambiguous calls rather than routing them.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift: this occupation has a genuine two-tier structure (booking/paperwork vs. exception resolution, tariff classification disputes, capacity crisis negotiation). If the routine tier is fully absorbed, the residual measured job is the exception tier — but this raises the score of the remaining seats while sharply reducing their number.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Narrow route only: project/heavy-lift, breakbulk, and time-critical pharma or AOG cargo, where shippers contractually name an individual account handler with 24/7 reachability. Visible marker would be RFP language requiring a named human coordinator rather than a portal SLA.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Even with the broker-licensing and hazmat levers fully realized, most of the 97,670 seats are non-licensed booking and tracking roles that no lever touches; the shields protect a licensed minority, so the occupation-level ceiling is roughly the mid-40s and comes with substantial headcount loss."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 89920,
        "wage": 41820
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 92280,
        "wage": 43210
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 95810,
        "wage": 43740
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 96510,
        "wage": 43770
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 85750,
        "wage": 46910
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 93480,
        "wage": 46860
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 105220,
        "wage": 48330
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 97800,
        "wage": 49900
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 97670,
        "wage": 52260
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 8.6,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [
    {
      "slug": "postmasters-and-mail-superintendents",
      "title": "Postmasters and Mail Superintendents",
      "verdict": "EXPOSED",
      "risk_resistance": 44,
      "median_wage": 96660,
      "overlap": 52,
      "skills_to_close": [
        "Management of Personnel Resources",
        "Learning Strategies",
        "Social Perceptiveness",
        "Management of Financial Resources"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}