{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/laborers-and-freight-stock-and-material-movers-hand/", "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": "Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand", "soc_code": "53-7062", "category": "Transportation", "us_employment": 2950280, "median_annual_wage": 40240 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 39, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 13, "embodiment": 18, "liability_shield": 1, "trust_premium": 3, "judgment_accountability": 4 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Trailer unloading of floor-loaded mixed cartons, breaking down collapsed pallets, and hand-stacking irregular freight in a 1970s dock with no clearance still beat every commercial robot, but the high-volume half of the work — case picking to a conveyor, palletizing uniform SKUs, tote induction — is already being done by machines in new-build DCs, which is what holds this at 13 instead of 17.", "embodiment": "The whole shift is lifting 50-lb boxes, climbing in and out of trailers at ambient temperature or in a freezer, walking uneven yard surfaces, and reaching into spaces a fixed arm cannot see into; the only reason it isn't 20 is that a growing share of the work happens inside conditioned, engineered warehouse aisles rather than construction sites and open yards.", "liability_shield": "No licence, no certification, no exam — a forklift authorization under 29 CFR 1910.178(l) is employer-issued training, not a credential you carry, and when freight is damaged the carrier or the employer pays, never you.", "trust_premium": "Nobody requesting the pallet knows who moved it; the 3 reflects that a crew lead or a driver may specifically ask for the loader who blocks-and-braces a trailer well, which is a reputation inside one building, not a client relationship.", "judgment_accountability": "Calls are real but bounded — deciding stack height, whether a carton is too damaged to ship, when a load needs re-securing — and they're governed by pick lists, load diagrams, and a supervisor who is thirty feet away." }, "rationale": "Almost nothing here is text or screen work, so language models barely touch the job — the threat is capital, not chatbots: goods-to-person systems, autonomous mobile robots, and improving suction/multi-grip picking arms already handle high-volume sortation and palletizing in purpose-built facilities. What survives is messy: irregular loads, damaged cartons, trailer unloading, retail backrooms, construction sites, and any building not designed around robots. The job doesn't disappear — it concentrates in the un-engineered spaces while the biggest, most standardized warehouses shed headcount per unit shipped.", "outlook": "Employment stays large through the 2030s but shrinks per package shipped, with growth surviving in construction, retail backrooms, and small distributors while mega-warehouses automate the standardized half of the work away.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift is genuinely two-tier here: if goods-to-person and robotic palletizing absorb the high-volume standardized picking and stacking, the residual role concentrates in trailer/container devanning of mixed floor-loaded freight, damaged-carton triage, retail backroom replenishment, and exception recovery around robot lines — work current manipulation stacks fail at. Watch for job postings retitled toward 'robotics attendant / exception handler' at Amazon, Symbotic and GXO sites.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "Already near ceiling. Only route up is a shift in employment mix toward the least engineered settings — construction material handling, moving and storage, agricultural packing sheds, and older multi-story urban warehouses that cannot be retrofitted for AMRs — as engineered facilities shed per-unit headcount.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 1 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Narrow but real: OSHA powered-industrial-truck certification (29 CFR 1910.178(l)) and hazmat handler training under 49 CFR 172 Subpart H already require a named trained human. If OSHA finalizes a rule requiring a certified human spotter or attendant present whenever autonomous mobile robots operate in mixed pedestrian aisles — the direction of the ANSI/ITSDF B56.5 safety standard revisions and of state warehouse-quota laws like California AB 701 and NY S8922 — a headcount floor becomes legally attached to robot deployment.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "If load-securement and shipping-condition sign-off is pushed onto the dock worker — carrier claims practice and FMCSA 392.9 securement duties already make a named person answerable for whether a load ships or is refused — the exception call (reject damaged pallet, re-block a shifted load) becomes an owned consequential decision rather than a throughput task.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "Trust premium has no realistic route: buyers of freight handling pay for throughput and damage rates, never for the mover being human, and there is no consumer-facing surface to charge on. Combined realistic ceiling is roughly the high 40s, and it comes mostly from capital cost and safety rulemaking, not from anything the work itself confers." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 2711320, "wage": 27040 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 2893180, "wage": 28260 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 2953170, "wage": 29510 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 2805200, "wage": 31120 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 2729010, "wage": 31230 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 2934050, "wage": 36110 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 3008300, "wage": 37660 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 2982530, "wage": 38940 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 2950280, "wage": 40240 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 8.8, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "tire-repairers-and-changers", "title": "Tire Repairers and Changers", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 49, "median_wage": 37710, "overlap": 75, "skills_to_close": [ "Installation", "Repairing", "Service Orientation", "Troubleshooting" ] }, { "slug": "tree-trimmers-and-pruners", "title": "Tree Trimmers and Pruners", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 70, "median_wage": 50960, "overlap": 66, "skills_to_close": [ "Complex Problem Solving", "Equipment Selection", "Instructing", "Operation and Control" ] }, { "slug": "tank-car-truck-and-ship-loaders", "title": "Tank Car, Truck, and Ship Loaders", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 53, "median_wage": 58870, "overlap": 65, "skills_to_close": [ "Operations Monitoring", "Operation and Control", "Complex Problem Solving", "Management of Personnel Resources" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }