COOKED
The modal worker sets up and runs laser, rotary, or chemical etching equipment and prepares artwork files — layout, font selection, vectorizing logos, and proofing are exactly the screen tasks generative design tools and templated e-commerce ordering systems already absorb. What holds is the physical half: fixturing odd-shaped parts, tuning power/speed on unfamiliar substrates, hand-finishing, and reject inspection. A thin artisan tier (hand engraving on firearms, jewelry, trophies with genuine craft reputation) sells the human hand itself, but it is not the national median of this 7,750-person occupation.
Nearly all of this fall was the 2020 shock. It has been climbing back since.
Median pay $30,620 → $43,310 +13.2% in real terms
This line is counted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the one figure on this page that isn't a judgement of ours. Headcount moves on demand, offshoring, demographics and the business cycle, and automation is one term among several, often not the loudest.
So a falling line is not evidence that AI did it, and a rising one is not evidence that it won't. Both happen in this register: some occupations resist automation and shrink anyway, others are highly automatable and keep growing. The marked year is 2020.
BLS projection, 2024–2034
-0.7% 8,600 → 8,600 on the projections basis
Exposed, and shrinking
Both signals point the same way: the tasks are largely automatable and the BLS projects -0.7% by 2034. This is the case where the score and the forecast agree, and it is the one worth taking seriously.
Different clocks. The score is what current AI could do to this work today. The projection is how many of these jobs will exist in 2034. Everything between the two — how fast employers actually adopt, whether demand grows in the meantime — is why they can point opposite ways without either being wrong.
~900 openings a year on average, including replacing people who leave.
LinerEtcherJoggerEmbosserEngraverLettererEngrosserProcessorRe-EtcherRetoucherDie CutterHand EtcherPlate MakerSilversmithGlass EtcherLeaf StamperMold StamperPlate CutterSketch MakerWax EngraverHand EngraverLens EngraverMold EngraverSiderographer
Holding it up: embodiment . Weakest point: liability shield .
Mixed — a routine tier and a judgment tier A 7 reflects that the file-side half of the day — importing a customer logo, vectorizing it, setting kerning on a nameplate, nesting parts on the bed, running a test coupon — is already handled by templated online ordering and one-click raster/vector conversion, while jig-building for a curved bell or tapered tumbler and judging whether the anneal on stainless came out grey enough to pass still need someone at the machine, which is why it sits above the 0-6 already-automatable band rather than in the mixed middle.
Some physical or field component 11 comes from work that is hands-on but in your own shop under your own light: clamping and shimming odd-shaped parts, swapping lenses and cleaning optics, pulling parts through masking and etchant baths, running rotary attachments, and hand-buffing or filling with wax — physical and skilled, but not the uncontrolled outdoor or in-service conditions that push a score past 13.
No licence, no signature requirement 1 is right because no state licences etching or engraving; the only credentials that touch the job are laser-safety and hazmat handling for ferric chloride and nitric baths, and those attach to the employer's OSHA and EPA compliance, not to a personal certificate that a machine cannot legally replace.
Executes defined procedures on defined inputs 4 fits calls that are real but bounded and reversible on a scrap coupon: power/speed/frequency for an unfamiliar anodized aluminum, whether a mark is deep enough for a UID or serial requirement, whether to scrap a piece with a flare-out — decisions made against sample plates and customer proofs, with the consequence measured in one ruined blank, not the ambiguous high-stakes exposure of the 14-20 band.
The verdict above describes this occupation as a whole. Almost nobody does the typical version of a job — tick what's actually in your week and see how your own mix sits.
Your task mix speaks to task resistance (7/20 here) — how much of the day's work current AI already does. That is the dimension the boxes above are about.
It cannot move the other three. Liability shield (1/20) is whether the law requires a licensed human to sign. Trust premium (5/20) is whether buyers specifically pay for a person. Judgment and accountability (4/20) is whether the role exists to own consequential calls. Those are facts about the occupation's standing, not about which tasks are in your week — a paralegal who does only trial exhibits still holds no licence. Together they are 10 of this occupation's 28 points (36%).
Embodiment (11/20) is also a property of the work rather than the worker, but we don't tag individual tasks as physical or not, so the picker can't tell you anything about it. That's a limit of this tool, not a claim.
Did we get the list right? Tell us what's missing — the tasks are written from the outside, and you're reading this from the inside.
The moves above are yours to make. This is the other half: what would have to change in the world for the occupation itself to score higher. None of it is in any one person's gift, but it is where the floor actually comes from. Scores here are not a one-way ratchet. Only two of the five dimensions — task resistance and embodiment — track what machines can do. The other three track law, what buyers will pay for, and who is answerable, and those move in both directions, often in response to the same pressure AI creates. If every lever below landed, this occupation would score around 38/100 — EXPOSED.
Growth of the explicitly hand-cut tier: hand engraving on high-end firearms (FEGA — Firearms Engravers Guild of America certification and show-based commission market), signet rings, and Japanese/Italian bulino work, where the sales pitch is chisel-and-graver provenance and machine-cut work is discounted. If gallery/auction houses and guilds formalize 'hand-engraved' labeling the way hallmarking works, the artisan tier's premium hardens — but this covers a few hundred workers, not the median plate-and-trophy shop
Task-mix shift as templated e-commerce absorbs layout and proofing: what remains is fixturing irregular parts, first-article setup on unfamiliar substrates (anodized vs. bare titanium, coated glass), power/speed characterization, and reject calls. The occupation genuinely has an ops tier under the file-prep tier; if the file-prep half disappears, the residual day is substrate judgment
Shift of remaining volume toward serialization and marking of odd geometries — medical implants, aerospace parts, gun receivers — where the part must be jigged and rotated by hand and cannot be sheet-fed. Robotic loading exists for flat stock, not for one-off castings
Traceability marking rules create a documented-operator requirement rather than a license: FDA UDI direct part marking on implants, and ATF marking depth/legibility standards (0.003 in depth, 1/16 in height) on firearm frames, where a botched or shallow mark on a serialized receiver is a regulatory defect. An AS9100/ISO 13485 audit trail naming the operator who signed off the mark is the realistic version — not personal liability, and not a license
The limit. Even with every lever, this stays in the 30s. There is no licensing body for etchers, no signature requirement, and the median job — plaques, trophies, awards, promotional glass — is exactly the volume that templated online ordering plus a laser absorbs. The artisan and serialization tiers are real but small; a rising register score for this SOC would mostly reflect the low-tier jobs vanishing, not the workers being safer.
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 500 | $45,520 +5% |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 430 | $58,020 +34% |
| Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | 330 | — |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 240 | $43,880 +1% |
| Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH | 230 | $50,710 +17% |
| Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA | 170 | $37,780 -13% |
| San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA | 130 | $56,470 +30% |
| Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN | 110 | $36,960 -15% |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 430 | $58,020 +34% |
| Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD | 90 | $57,770 +33% |
| San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA | 130 | $56,470 +30% |
We have no reported case of a named organisation automating this occupation. Not one deployment, not one announcement.
That is worth saying out loud next to a score of 28. The verdict above is about what the work exposes — what current AI could do to these tasks. It is not a claim that anyone has done it. For this occupation those two things have come apart completely: the capability argument is on this page, and the evidence column is empty.
Has AI actually changed your work? One tap, anonymous, and the running tally is public. Nothing else is asked of you.
Rather than check back: get the digest and we'll tell you what changed — or watch a single occupation from its own page.