{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/construction-laborers/",
  "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": "Construction Laborers",
    "soc_code": "47-2061",
    "category": "Construction",
    "us_employment": 1096780,
    "median_annual_wage": 47120
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 52,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 16,
    "embodiment": 19,
    "liability_shield": 3,
    "trust_premium": 6,
    "judgment_accountability": 8
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Stripping formwork on a curved wall, hand-digging around a live gas line, or dragging hose through mud on a rain-delayed pour are tasks no machine sequences reliably — the 4-point gap below 20 reflects that layout marking, rebar tying, and bulk excavation are already being peeled off by Dusty Robotics-type printers and TyBot rigs.",
    "embodiment": "You work at whatever grade, weather, and ceiling height the site gives you — trench boxes, scaffold planks, live traffic lanes, 95°F slab pours — with the only points held back being the occasional day spent on flat, swept concrete pushing a broom.",
    "liability_shield": "No state licenses a construction laborer; the 3 comes from OSHA 10/30 cards, and competent-person or flagger certs that a general contractor may require on paper but that neither transfer with you nor put your name on anything the AHJ inspects — the super and the licensed trades sign off.",
    "trust_premium": "Your foreman knows who shows up at 6:30 and who can read a grade stake, and that reputation gets you called back on the next job — but the homeowner or developer paying the invoice never learns your name, and a temp agency can fill your slot by Monday.",
    "judgment_accountability": "Spotting a trench wall starting to slough, deciding a load is too unbalanced to rig, or catching a signal that will swing a bucket into a crew member are real calls you own in the moment; the 8 rather than 14 is because the excavation plan, sequencing, and shoring design come down from the competent person and engineer, not from you."
  },
  "rationale": "Almost nothing a construction laborer does — digging, hauling, forming and stripping concrete, operating jackhammers and compactors, signaling equipment, cleaning and securing sites — can be done by a language model, and today's construction robotics handle only narrow, flat, repeatable tasks like rebar tying or layout marking. The exposure isn't AI replacing the body; it's the absence of a license, signature, or client relationship to anchor the wage, which keeps pay flat and makes the job the first cut when interest rates or immigration policy shift demand. The modal laborer is a general helper on a residential or commercial crew, not a specialized scaffold or hazmat tech.",
  "outlook": "The physical work will still be done by humans in 2035, but wages stay pressured and hours stay cyclical unless you carry certifications or equipment tickets that make you the required person on site.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Expansion of mandatory certification regimes that already exist in slivers of the trade to the general laborer: OSHA 30 or a state-issued 'skilled and trained workforce' card as a condition of bidding public work (California AB 3018 already requires apprenticeship-graduate ratios on state projects), plus jurisdictions like NYC's Local Law 196 site safety training hours. If a named, carded worker must be logged for trench, silica, or confined-space tasks and can be personally cited, the shield rises from token to real.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 5
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Insurer-driven requirement: builder's risk and workers' comp carriers conditioning premiums on documented certified-competent-person presence for excavation and fall-protection tasks, making the certified laborer a contractual necessity rather than an interchangeable body.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Task-mix shift as autonomous equipment and layout robots take the repeatable tier: the remaining human role concentrates on spotting, exclusion-zone control, and stop-work authority around machines that cannot read an unstable trench wall or an unmarked utility. Union contracts (LIUNA) or state rules requiring a human safety observer per autonomous unit would formalize this — analogous to existing crane signalperson certification under OSHA 1926.1428.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Retrofit, disaster-recovery, and utility-repair work growing as a share of demand — irregular, undocumented, one-off site conditions where the routine flat-slab tier robots handle is absent. Federal infrastructure and lead-pipe replacement mandates push volume toward exactly this tier.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Trust premium has no plausible route: buyers contract with the GC, never meet the laborer, and no client pays extra for a human helper. Embodiment is already near ceiling and can only fall. The real determinant of this occupation's fate is construction demand and immigration enforcement, not model capability — a register score cannot capture that."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 962060,
        "wage": 34530
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 1001470,
        "wage": 35800
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 1020350,
        "wage": 36860
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 971330,
        "wage": 37890
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 968760,
        "wage": 37770
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 1012780,
        "wage": 40750
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 1019090,
        "wage": 45300
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 1057660,
        "wage": 46730
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 1096780,
        "wage": 47120
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 14,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [
    {
      "slug": "glaziers",
      "title": "Glaziers",
      "verdict": "EXPOSED",
      "risk_resistance": 65,
      "median_wage": 57080,
      "overlap": 84,
      "skills_to_close": [
        "Judgment and Decision Making",
        "Time Management"
      ]
    },
    {
      "slug": "refractory-materials-repairers-except-brickmasons",
      "title": "Refractory Materials Repairers, Except Brickmasons",
      "verdict": "EXPOSED",
      "risk_resistance": 65,
      "median_wage": 61290,
      "overlap": 82,
      "skills_to_close": [
        "Repairing",
        "Troubleshooting",
        "Equipment Maintenance",
        "Quality Control Analysis"
      ]
    },
    {
      "slug": "operating-engineers-and-other-construction-equipment-operators",
      "title": "Operating Engineers and Other Construction Equipment Operators",
      "verdict": "EXPOSED",
      "risk_resistance": 64,
      "median_wage": 59850,
      "overlap": 79,
      "skills_to_close": [
        "Operation and Control",
        "Active Learning",
        "Quality Control Analysis",
        "Equipment Maintenance"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}