EXPOSED
The work is physical and site-based — rigging loads, reading signals from a spotter, feeling a drum load up, inspecting cable and brakes on a mine shaft hoist or logging yarder — and language models do none of that. The exposure is not chatbots but automation of the machine itself: programmable logic control, automated shaft hoists in modern mines, and remote/teleoperated winches already displace the operator's seat, and the occupation is small (~2,600) and shrinking. No license carries the job the way a crane operator's NCCCO card does, and nobody hires you for the relationship.
This fall is concentrated in 2020 and has not recovered since.
Median pay $59,720 → $56,450 -24.4% 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
-1.1% 2,700 → 2,700 on the projections basis
Shrinking, but not obviously because of AI
The BLS projects -1.1% by 2034, but at 47/100 this work is only moderately exposed — not the profile of a job current AI can simply do. Occupations shrink for many reasons, and the score does not point at automation as this one's cause.
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.
~300 openings a year on average, including replacing people who leave.
PitmanRiggerRodmanSloperTuggerFootmanHoistmanStevedoreLog LoaderRod PullerBoat LoaderBoat PullerCage TenderFoot TenderOre TrimmerPack PullerPier RunnerPipe PullerRigging ManWell PullerYard WorkerCoal HandlerCoal TrimmerDerrick Hand
Holding it up: embodiment . Weakest point: trust premium .
Mixed — a routine tier and a judgment tier At 13 the split is real: repeat-cycle hoisting on a fixed shaft or a bin-feed drum is already run by PLC and automated skip controls in modern mines, but a logging yarder pulling turns off broken ground, or a hoist landing an irregular load in a congested shaft bottom, still needs someone watching the line, adjusting speed by feel, and reacting to a hang-up — which is why it sits above the automatable band rather than at 16 like true field-judgment machine work.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments 16 reflects that the job is a shaft collar, a landing, or a hillside cable setting — you hook and unhook loads, walk the drum to inspect wire rope for broken wires and kinks, grease sheaves, work in dust, weather, and noise, and clear fouled lines by hand — and only the sit-in-the-house control portion is enclosed, keeping it short of the 19-20 of fully unstructured field work.
Certification preferred, not legally required 5 is right because MSHA hoistman qualification (30 CFR Part 49/57 requirements for shaft hoisting) and employer-specific certification exist and matter in mines, but there is no portable, individually-held license like the NCCCO crane card — you are qualified by the operator on the site, and the mine or logging contractor carries the exposure, not you personally.
Meaningful discretion 10 covers the calls you actually own — whether to lift when the signal is unclear, when a rope has enough broken wires to pull it out of service, backing off a hang-up before you snap a line — but hoisting procedures, signal codes, and load limits are written down and posted, so you are exercising discretion inside a documented envelope, not setting the envelope.
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 (13/20 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 (3/20) is whether buyers specifically pay for a person. Judgment and accountability (10/20) 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 18 of this occupation's 47 points (38%).
Embodiment (16/20) 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.
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.
Task-mix shift: once PLC-controlled hoists handle routine cycles, the remaining seat is abnormal-condition work — rope slip, brake fade, stuck conveyance, emergency man-riding evacuation — where the operator owns the call under ambiguity; formalized if MSHA requires a named person authorized to override automatic control
MSHA extending 30 CFR Part 57 shaft-hoisting rules (already requiring a designated hoistman for man-hoisting) to explicitly bar unattended automated operation when persons are in the conveyance, or an OSHA/ASME B30.7 (base-mounted drum hoists) revision requiring a qualified hoist operator to sign daily inspection and load-test records personally rather than an automated log
State mine-safety licensing of hoistmen (as in Pennsylvania anthracite and West Virginia certification schemes) becoming a condition of workers' comp coverage or the insurer's underwriting for shaft operations
Growth of the non-automatable end of the trade — mobile logging yarders on steep unmapped terrain, marine/salvage winching, entertainment rigging hoists over live audiences — where the load path is unrepeatable and rigging is hand-done each time
Rope and drum condition assessment becoming a required operator duty under nondestructive-testing rules (wire rope electromagnetic inspection interpretation), pulling diagnostic judgment into the job rather than a separate inspector
The limit. Trust premium has no realistic route: the buyer is a mine, mill, or contractor purchasing lifted tonnage, and no customer will ever specify a human at the drum. The dominant force is headcount, not score — 2,600 workers and shrinking means automation removes seats rather than reshaping them, so even a strong liability shield protects a very small remainder.
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 300 | $118,210 +109% |
| Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA | 160 | $74,840 +33% |
| Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD | 130 | $99,840 +77% |
| Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA | 60 | $46,310 -18% |
| Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI | 60 | $78,400 +39% |
| Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | 40 | $47,810 -15% |
| Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI | 30 | $35,410 -37% |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 300 | $118,210 +109% |
| Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD | 130 | $99,840 +77% |
| Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI | 60 | $78,400 +39% |
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 47. 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.