{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/furniture-finishers/",
  "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": "Furniture Finishers",
    "soc_code": "51-7021",
    "category": "Production",
    "us_employment": 14480,
    "median_annual_wage": 44540
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 52,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 16,
    "embodiment": 17,
    "liability_shield": 1,
    "trust_premium": 9,
    "judgment_accountability": 9
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Matching a 1930s walnut veneer's amber tone by mixing dye stains, feathering a burn-in stick into a gouge, and knowing when a hand-rubbed shellac coat is ready to cut back are judgments made through fingertip drag and raking light — a 16 rather than a 19 because flat-panel spray, sanding and UV-cure lines have genuinely absorbed the repetitive case-goods work.",
    "embodiment": "You are bent over a carcass with a random-orbit sander, kneeling to reach chair stretchers, running a spray gun at a set distance around curved legs, and stripping with methylene-chloride or caustic paste in a booth — no two pieces present the same geometry, which is why this sits at 17 and not at the 12 of a machine-tender who feeds one shape.",
    "liability_shield": "Nothing here requires a licence: the constraints on you are OSHA respirator fit-testing, EPA/NESHAP rules on solvent emissions and flammable-storage codes, and those bind your shop owner, not a credential in your name that a competitor cannot obtain.",
    "trust_premium": "At 9, the relationship matters when a customer hands over grandmother's dining set or a designer sends the same repeat spec work through a shop, but most volume arrives as a work order from a manufacturer or dealer who never learns your name and rebids on price.",
    "judgment_accountability": "You decide whether a finish gets stripped or scuffed and recoated, whether a veneer blister is glued or patched, and how much original patina to sacrifice — real calls with money and irreplaceable pieces on them, but made inside known trade procedure and usually reviewable by a shop lead before the customer sees it."
  },
  "rationale": "Stripping, sanding, staining, grain-filling, spray-lacquering and hand-rubbing furniture is physical work on irregular, one-off surfaces that language models cannot touch and current robots handle only on flat, repeatable factory panels. The real pressure is not AI but industrial flat-line finishing cells and imported pre-finished goods, which have already hollowed out the volume tier of this trade. What survives is restoration, antique repair, color matching to an existing piece, and custom high-end work — none of it licensed, but all of it dependent on eye, hand, and a customer who wants that specific chair saved.",
  "outlook": "AI barely touches the bench work, but employment keeps drifting down as factory finishing and imported pre-finished furniture absorb volume — the finishers who last will be restoration and on-site repair specialists, not production sprayers.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Formal conservation credentialing spreading from museums into the private antique trade — e.g. AIC (American Institute for Conservation) Professional Associate status becoming a routine requirement in insurance-funded restoration claims and auction-house condition work, so buyers are paying for a named, documented human conservator rather than a shop rate. Also visible: provenance/treatment-report expectations from Sotheby's/Christie's consignors.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift is genuinely available here because the trade has two tiers: as flat-line spray cells and imported pre-finished goods finish absorbing new-production volume, the residual occupation is almost entirely restoration, in-situ color matching to a faded original, and hand-rubbed repair on irregular carcasses — none of which any current cell handles. This raises the score without any new law, purely by subtraction of the routine tier.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "If insurer-funded and estate/probate restoration work grows as a share of the trade, the finisher owns an irreversible call — strip versus preserve original surface, which directly sets the appraised value. Watch for insurance adjusters requiring a written pre-treatment recommendation signed by the finisher before authorizing payment, as already happens in fine-art loss adjustment.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "No licensure route exists. The nearest real mechanism is EPA/OSHA-side: methylene-chloride stripper restrictions (EPA's 2024 TSCA rule creating a Workplace Chemical Protection Program) and state solvent-spray permitting force certified operators and trained-personnel records. This is compliance burden, not personal legal liability for a signed judgment, and it does not create a shield worth more than a point or two.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 1
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "The dominant threat is not AI at all but flat-line finishing cells and pre-finished imports, so raising these scores does not protect headcount — a 14,480-worker trade can keep every dimension and still shrink. There is no plausible licensure regime for furniture finishing anywhere in the US, so liability_shield is effectively capped near zero."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 17530,
        "wage": 31300
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 17250,
        "wage": 31950
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 16220,
        "wage": 32480
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 15590,
        "wage": 32970
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 16300,
        "wage": 36580
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 14990,
        "wage": 37960
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 14380,
        "wage": 39790
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 14230,
        "wage": 42530
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 14480,
        "wage": 44540
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": -17.4,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [
    {
      "slug": "refractory-materials-repairers-except-brickmasons",
      "title": "Refractory Materials Repairers, Except Brickmasons",
      "verdict": "EXPOSED",
      "risk_resistance": 65,
      "median_wage": 61290,
      "overlap": 90,
      "skills_to_close": [
        "Equipment Maintenance",
        "Repairing"
      ]
    },
    {
      "slug": "welders-cutters-solderers-and-brazers",
      "title": "Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers",
      "verdict": "EXPOSED",
      "risk_resistance": 62,
      "median_wage": 53750,
      "overlap": 82,
      "skills_to_close": [
        "Installation",
        "Science"
      ]
    },
    {
      "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": 81,
      "skills_to_close": [
        "Operation and Control",
        "Equipment Maintenance",
        "Repairing",
        "Troubleshooting"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}