{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/helpers-production-workers/", "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": "Helpers--Production Workers", "soc_code": "51-9198", "category": "Production", "us_employment": 165700, "median_annual_wage": 39070 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 34, "contested": true, "near_boundary": true, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 12, "embodiment": 15, "liability_shield": 1, "trust_premium": 2, "judgment_accountability": 4 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "At 12 the job sits just above the midpoint because the predictable half — moving totes to a line, stacking finished cases, feeding blanks into a press — is already handled by conveyors and palletizers in modernized plants, while the unpredictable half (reaching into a jammed sealer, hand-separating parts that came off-spec, sweeping and wiping down a machine's tight interior between runs, hunting down an odd-length piece of stock in the back) still has no cheap engineering answer, which is why it isn't a 6 but also can't reach the high teens.", "embodiment": "A 15 reflects that essentially every duty happens standing on a plant floor with your hands on material — lifting 50-lb boxes, positioning stock, clearing scrap — in conditions that vary by shift, product run, and how the last operator left the station, though it stops short of the high end because you work inside one building with fixed machines rather than on a roof, in a trench, or in traffic.", "liability_shield": "A 1 is right because nothing you do requires a credential — no forklift certification is assumed in the base job, no inspection stamp, no signature on a batch record; the machine operator or line lead owns the output, and the only paperwork touching you is the OSHA log and the employer's own training sign-off.", "trust_premium": "At 2, the work is interchangeable by design: helpers are assigned to whichever line is short that morning, temp agencies fill the slots for weeks at a time, and no customer, patient, or client ever knows which person staged their material — the only relational value is the shift supervisor knowing you show up and don't damage stock.", "judgment_accountability": "The 4 is not zero because you decide when a jam is safe to clear yourself versus when to stop the line and call the operator, and you catch obvious defects moving past you, but the standard is a posted work instruction and a lockout-tagout procedure rather than your own call, and anything ambiguous goes up the chain." }, "rationale": "Almost nothing in this job is text or screen work, so language AI barely touches it — the threat is mechanization: conveyors, automated feeders, palletizers, and cobots that load, unload, and stage materials for machine operators. What protects the role today is messy, varied hand work (untangling jams, hand-sorting mixed parts, cleaning equipment in tight spaces, fetching odd-shaped stock) that is expensive to engineer around at low wages. There is no license, no signature, no client relationship, and very little discretion, so when a plant does invest in automation the position disappears rather than shrinks.", "outlook": "Employment keeps eroding through the 2030s as plants add automated feeding and palletizing; the survivors are the helpers who converted into operators, setup techs, or maintenance assistants.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "Plant product mix shifting toward high-mix/low-volume or seasonal short runs (e.g. contract packaging, food co-packers) where changeover frequency makes fixed conveyor/palletizer lines uneconomic and the helper's job becomes almost entirely unstructured manual handling in varying cells; also confined-space and wet-sanitation cleaning tasks that cobots cannot enter under current safety standards", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift after the plant automates staging and palletizing: what remains for the surviving headcount is jam clearing, exception handling on mixed/damaged parts, and machine-tending judgment — effectively a lower-tier operator role. This raises the score for the remaining jobs while cutting the number of jobs, so it is not protection at the occupation level", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "OSHA machine-guarding and robot-safety enforcement (ANSI/RIA R15.06 risk assessments) plus food-safety rules (FSMA, USDA HACCP) requiring a trained, named human to perform and log sanitation and lockout/tagout verification steps that cannot be delegated to automated equipment; some union contracts already specify bargaining-unit staffing for these logged checks", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Formal designation of helpers as the recorded first-line quality/foreign-object inspection point under a customer audit scheme (SQF, BRCGS) or as trained authorized employees under 29 CFR 1910.147, making their sign-off on line clearance consequential", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 } ], "ceiling_note": "There is no realistic route to a trust premium — buyers never see this worker and no one pays extra for human material handling. Even with every lever above, the occupation stays exposed: the mechanism of loss is capital investment in fixed automation eliminating positions outright, and none of these levers slows that once payback pencils out." }, "adjudication": { "method": "two independent runs disagreed; merge is rounding-dependent", "outcome": "unresolved — published score left unchanged", "run_totals": [ 34, 31 ], "run_verdicts": [ "EXPOSED", "COOKED" ] }, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 402140, "wage": 26070 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 350410, "wage": 27730 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 303030, "wage": 29100 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 239340, "wage": 30500 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 202860, "wage": 30000 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 190680, "wage": 34670 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 181810, "wage": 36700 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 167490, "wage": 38220 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 165700, "wage": 39070 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": -58.8, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "welders-cutters-solderers-and-brazers", "title": "Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 62, "median_wage": 53750, "overlap": 87, "skills_to_close": [ "Judgment and Decision Making", "Installation", "Quality Control Analysis", "Time Management" ] }, { "slug": "refractory-materials-repairers-except-brickmasons", "title": "Refractory Materials Repairers, Except Brickmasons", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 65, "median_wage": 61290, "overlap": 87, "skills_to_close": [ "Repairing", "Equipment Maintenance", "Troubleshooting", "Time Management" ] }, { "slug": "refuse-and-recyclable-material-collectors", "title": "Refuse and Recyclable Material Collectors", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 55, "median_wage": 49690, "overlap": 84, "skills_to_close": [ "Equipment Maintenance", "Writing" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }