EXPOSED
The modal worker here is a warehouse, dock, yard, or transit supervisor who spends the day on a floor or in a yard directing loaders, drivers, and forklift operators — that physical presence and crew management is not automatable, but the planning layer around it is. Route sequencing, shift rostering, load assignment, dwell-time and productivity reporting, and DOT logbook checks are already being absorbed by WMS/TMS optimization engines and telematics dashboards. What holds is the human who walks the dock, handles a no-show or a jackknifed trailer, disciplines and trains a churning crew, and owns the safety incident when OSHA shows up.
Headcount grew steadily across the period.
Median pay $55,060 → $62,890 -8.6% 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
+3.7% 609,600 → 632,200 on the projections basis
Growing, and only partly exposed
The BLS expects +3.7% more of these jobs by 2034, and at 52/100 the work is only partly exposed — some tasks are automatable, the core of the job is not. Nothing here is in tension.
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.
~61,300 openings a year on average, including replacing people who leave.
BoatswainDock BossGang BossGrip BossChute BossHatch BossRoadmasterTrainmasterFarm ManagerPort StewardShip StewardYard ForemanYard ManagerCargo ManagerFleet ManagerFlight PurserRoute ManagerCab SupervisorCar SupervisorDriver ManagerHub SupervisorYard ConductorAgency OperatorDirt Contractor
Holding it up: embodiment . Weakest point: liability shield .
Mixed — a routine tier and a judgment tier About half of a shift lead's actual clock — dispatch sequencing, trailer door assignments, driver hours-of-service pre-checks, productivity and dwell reports, overtime calculations — is already handled by Manhattan/Blue Yonder WMS, Samsara telematics, and labor-standards modules, while the other half (walking the dock at 4am, re-crewing around three call-outs, coaching a new forklift operator who keeps clipping racking) has no software substitute, which is exactly what an 11 means rather than a 6.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments You are on a concrete floor, a rail yard, or a bus platform in whatever weather it is, climbing into trailers to verify loads, spotting for reversing equipment, and physically walking a spill or a downed pallet — uncontrolled outdoor and mixed-traffic environments push this to 14, held short of higher only because you direct rather than operate the equipment most of the shift.
Certification preferred, not legally required There is no license gate on this job — a CDL, a powered-industrial-truck trainer cert under 29 CFR 1910.178(l), or an OSHA 30 card helps you get hired but no statute makes you personally answerable, and when a citation lands it goes to the employer as the responsible party, so the 5 reflects certification-preferred, not protected.
Meaningful discretion You decide in real time whether a rig goes out with a marginal brake reading, whether to send a fatigued driver home and eat the missed delivery, and whether an incident is recordable — calls with DOT, OSHA, and injury consequences made without a lawyer or a procedure that covers the specific case, which is a 13; it stops short of 14+ because network-level and capital decisions sit above you.
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 (11/20 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 (5/20) is whether the law requires a licensed human to sign. Trust premium (9/20) is whether buyers specifically pay for a person. Judgment and accountability (13/20) 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 27 of this occupation's 52 points (52%).
Embodiment (14/20) 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.
No occupation passed every test: close enough to first-line supervisors of transportation and material moving workers, except aircraft cargo handling supervisors on skills and subject matter, at least 10 points more resistant, no big jump in training, no new licence, no pay cut, and not shrinking on its own. That happens for 223 of the 654 occupations here that aren't SAFE, and it is worth stating plainly rather than leaving the section off.
The usual reason is that exposure travels with the skill profile. The jobs most similar to yours tend to be exposed for the same reasons yours is, so the near neighbours don't clear the gap — and the ones that do are a different kind of work, not a transfer of what you already know. Read that as a limit of this method, not a verdict that you're stuck: it only compares whole occupations, and it cannot see specialisation, industry, or anything you'd bring that isn't in a federal skill survey.
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 63/100, still EXPOSED.
FMCSA/state enforcement or insurer requirements that name a designated, individually-certified human safety supervisor as the accountable signer for hours-of-service falsification, hazmat load certification (49 CFR 172.704 trained-person sign-off), and crane/rigging lift plans — extending the existing pattern where OSHA cites a named 'competent person' and hazmat shippers' certifications require a specific trained employee. Also watch state warehouse quota laws (CA AB 701, NY, WA, MN) that require a named supervisor to furnish and defend written quota records.
Two genuine tiers exist here: the planning/reporting tier (route sequencing, dwell reports, logbook checks) and the crew tier (discipline, no-shows, incident handling, training a churning workforce). If the planning tier is fully absorbed, the measured remaining day is dominated by tasks current systems cannot do — but the honest note is that this raises the score only because the job shrinks, and headcount per site typically falls with it.
As WMS/TMS engines take route sequencing, rostering and load assignment, the residual role is exception ownership: overriding an algorithmic quota or dispatch call under CA AB 701-style laws, deciding to pull an unsafe driver or ground equipment, and being the deposed witness after an injury. Task-mix shift plus any board/OSHA rule making the override decision individually documented and attributable raises this.
Little upward room — the physical presence is already scored high. A modest rise if union contracts (Teamsters warehouse and transit agreements) explicitly require a bargaining-unit supervisor physically on-shift rather than a remote control-tower supervisor covering multiple sites, blocking the centralization that currently reduces on-floor presence.
The limit. No plausible route to a higher trust premium: the buyer is the employer, not an end customer, and nobody pays a premium for a human dock supervisor by name. The dominant threat is not task automation but remote consolidation — one supervisor covering four sites via camera and telematics — which the liability and union levers slow but do not stop.
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 35,860 | $71,510 +14% |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 22,930 | $62,190 -1% |
| Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | 19,490 | $60,260 -4% |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 19,280 | $68,330 +9% |
| Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA | 16,900 | $65,290 +4% |
| Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX | 15,320 | $60,760 -3% |
| Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD | 12,050 | $62,820 +0% |
| Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA | 11,610 | $69,920 +11% |
| Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA | 8,250 | $76,390 +21% |
| Casper, WY | 310 | $76,290 +21% |
| Walla Walla, WA | 100 | $75,800 +21% |
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 52. 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.