{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/fallers/",
  "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": "Fallers",
    "soc_code": "45-4021",
    "category": "Agriculture",
    "us_employment": 3130,
    "median_annual_wage": 52100
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 65,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": true,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 19,
    "embodiment": 20,
    "liability_shield": 6,
    "trust_premium": 6,
    "judgment_accountability": 14
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Sizing up a Douglas-fir's lean against a side-hill wind, picking the hinge thickness, driving wedges, and bucking a hung-up tree are judgment calls executed through a bar and chain in real time — there is no digitizable intermediate product for a model to generate, which is why this sits at 19 rather than in the mixed band.",
    "embodiment": "You work on 50-percent slopes in rain and snow, carrying a 20-pound saw, wedges, and fuel over blowdown and brush, with widowmakers overhead and no fixed workspace — this is the reference case for a 20, not a job with a physical component bolted onto desk work.",
    "liability_shield": "No state licenses fallers; most crews require only chainsaw safety training, first aid/CPR, and OSHA 1910.266 logging-standard competency, and citations land on the employer's logging operation rather than on you personally — the 6 reflects those real training gates, not a credential that legally reserves the work to you.",
    "trust_premium": "Landowners and mill contractors hire on production rate, safety record, and whether the timber comes down without breaking merchantable log length; a repeat relationship with a gyppo outfit or a tree service earns you the next job, but the buyer of the logs never knows your name — hence 6 rather than the low anonymous band.",
    "judgment_accountability": "You decide alone whether a rotten, leaning tree gets fallen, roped, or left standing, where the escape path goes, and when wind or a fellow faller's position means stop — a wrong call kills you or the man below you within seconds, with no supervisor to sign off, which puts it at 14; it stops short of higher because the falling itself follows well-established notch-and-backcut technique."
  },
  "rationale": "Almost nothing a faller does is text or screen work: reading a tree's lean, rot, and crown weight, planning notch and back-cut, clearing escape routes, and running a chainsaw on steep, wet, uneven ground are irreducibly physical and situational. Language AI has essentially no purchase here, and no field robot handles hand-falling on slopes where feller-bunchers can't operate. The real displacement pressure is mechanical, not cognitive — mechanized harvesting has already absorbed most flat-ground production falling, which is why this occupation is small and slowly shrinking despite being AI-proof.",
  "outlook": "In ten years AI will not have touched the cutting itself; employment will keep drifting down as mechanized harvesting takes more ground, with the surviving work concentrated in steep-slope, hazard-tree, and wildfire falling.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Adoption of a mandatory, individually-held faller certification with personal accountability on the US side of the border — modeled on BC Forest Safety Council's Certified Faller program (written + field evaluation, revocable ticket). Washington L&I and Oregon OSHA already require 'qualified' or 'certified' faller status in some rule language and for hazard-tree work; converting that from employer attestation to a state-issued, revocable personal credential required on every commercial harvest and federal hazard-tree contract would move this dimension most.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 6
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Federal/state wildfire and post-fire hazard-tree removal contracts (USFS, CAL FIRE, utility right-of-way clearance after the PG&E and Hawaiian Electric litigation) requiring a named certified faller or faller-in-charge to sign the danger-tree assessment and removal record for each stem, with that signature discoverable in wildfire liability suits.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Utility vegetation-management programs formalizing a documented per-tree risk call (retain/remove, fall direction, exclusion zone) attributable to the individual faller rather than to the contracting crew, driven by insurer requirements after utility ignition settlements. Raises the ceiling on an already-high score.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Growth in the niche where the buyer specifically wants hand-falling rather than mechanized harvest: selective/low-impact logging on FSC-certified or conservation-easement parcels, heritage and high-value timber (instrument-grade spruce, veneer logs) where machine damage destroys value, and steep residential lots. This is a small, real premium and unlikely to scale to the whole occupation.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "task_resistance (19) and embodiment (20) are effectively maxed — there is no upward room and no AI route downward either. The displacement pressure on this occupation is mechanized harvesting economics, not AI, and none of the levers above touch that: a stronger certification regime or a hand-falling premium can protect who does the remaining work, not how much work remains on ground a feller-buncher can reach."
  },
  "adjudication": {
    "method": "two independent runs agreed on the verdict",
    "outcome": "corroborated",
    "run_totals": [
      65,
      65
    ],
    "run_verdicts": [
      "EXPOSED",
      "EXPOSED"
    ]
  },
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 5420,
        "wage": 40690
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 4680,
        "wage": 44080
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 4890,
        "wage": 44650
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 4820,
        "wage": 43190
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 4170,
        "wage": 47700
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 4530,
        "wage": 49160
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 4800,
        "wage": 53170
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 4110,
        "wage": 53900
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 3130,
        "wage": 52100
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": -42.3,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}