{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/floor-layers-except-carpet-wood-and-hard-tiles/",
  "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": "Floor Layers, Except Carpet, Wood, and Hard Tiles",
    "soc_code": "47-2042",
    "category": "Construction",
    "us_employment": 23640,
    "median_annual_wage": 56460
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 62,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 18,
    "embodiment": 19,
    "liability_shield": 5,
    "trust_premium": 10,
    "judgment_accountability": 10
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Scribing sheet vinyl to a wall that's 3/8\" out of square over 12 feet, flash-patching a lippage-ridden slab to within 3/16\" in 10, and heat-welding a seam with a grooved rod at the right speed are feel-and-eye tasks with no digital substitute — the 18 rather than 20 reflects that takeoffs, seam layout diagrams, and moisture-test documentation are already software-driven.",
    "embodiment": "The work is done on knees on concrete in buildings that aren't finished — hauling 100-lb rolls up stairwells, kneeling in adhesive fumes, working around occupied hospital corridors and night shifts in retail — which is uncontrolled-environment labor by definition; 19 not 20 only because the setting is at least interior and weather-protected.",
    "liability_shield": "No state licenses floor covering installers as a trade; you may hold an INSTALL or CFI certification and manufacturer training to keep a warranty valid, but when a resilient floor telegraphs or an epoxy fails from slab moisture, the general contractor and the manufacturer argue it out — nobody comes for your personal credential.",
    "trust_premium": "Repeat work from the same GCs, flooring dealers, and property managers who know your seams hold is real value, but the buyer is usually procuring by square-foot price against three bids, so the relationship survives only until someone comes in 8% under.",
    "judgment_accountability": "You make consequential calls on your own — whether the slab passes RH testing, whether to skim or grind, which adhesive open time fits the temperature that day — but specs, manufacturer instructions, and ASTM F710 set the boundaries, so the discretion is technical rather than ambiguous."
  },
  "rationale": "Almost nothing in this job happens on a screen: leveling and patching subfloors, troweling adhesive, heat-welding vinyl seams, cutting sheet goods to irregular room shapes, and pouring epoxy or resilient systems in occupied buildings. No robot handles kneeling work in a 200-square-foot bathroom with out-of-square walls, so AI exposure is confined to the back office — bidding, takeoffs, scheduling, customer follow-up. The score lands in EXPOSED rather than SAFE only because there is no licensure or personal liability shield and the buyer relationship is transactional, which means AI-driven bid platforms and lead aggregators can squeeze pricing and margins even though the hands-on work stays human.",
  "outlook": "The installation work stays firmly human through the 2030s; the pressure comes from bid-platform commoditization and material systems that install faster, so the installers who hold manufacturer certifications and own moisture/substrate liability will keep pricing power.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Manufacturer warranty terms and spec language that make the flooring warranty void unless a named, certified installer signs the moisture-test record (ASTM F2170 in-situ RH / F1869 calcium chloride) and adhesive-application log. This already exists in weaker form — Mapei, Ardex, and Shaw honor some warranties only for trained applicators, and INSTALL/CFI certification is written into some union and federal spec jobs. If GCs and owners' insurers start requiring the installer of record to personally attest to substrate conditions before epoxy or resilient pours, the signature becomes a chokepoint AI bidding platforms cannot route around.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 5
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "State or local adoption of a specialty flooring/coatings contractor license with a bonded individual of record — modeled on California's C-15 Flooring and Floor Covering license, which most states lack. Any state adding a C-15 equivalent, or a health-department rule requiring a licensed applicator for seamless resinous floors in food-service and surgical suites, attaches a personally liable name to the work.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Task-mix shift plus contractual ownership of the moisture/flatness call: as takeoffs, bids, and scheduling get automated, what remains is the on-site decision to stop the job, specify a mitigation system, or accept an out-of-tolerance slab — a call that carries six-figure remediation exposure. If subcontracts increasingly name the installer (not the GC) as owner of the substrate-acceptance decision, as some ASTM F710-referencing specs already do, the role's consequential-call weight rises.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Growth in the segments where the buyer names the crew: hospital and lab resinous floors, ESD and cleanroom systems, historic and architect-specified poured terrazzo/epoxy work. These buyers already select by installer reputation and certification rather than low bid, which is the opposite of the lead-aggregator squeeze. This is a shift in mix, not a change in how commodity residential vinyl gets bought.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "task_resistance (18) and embodiment (19) are effectively at ceiling — there is no lever to name, and none needed. The whole downside risk in this occupation is price discovery, not task substitution: AI bid platforms and lead aggregators compressing margins on commodity residential work. Nothing above protects that tier; the levers all work by moving the work into specified, warranted, certified segments. A worker in strip-mall vinyl replacement sees little of this."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 11860,
        "wage": 40040
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 14050,
        "wage": 42760
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 16290,
        "wage": 44240
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 16720,
        "wage": 45520
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 18300,
        "wage": 48060
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 20710,
        "wage": 48870
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 25150,
        "wage": 48840
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 24850,
        "wage": 54340
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 23640,
        "wage": 56460
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 99.3,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}