{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/logging-workers-all-other/", "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": "Logging Workers, All Other", "soc_code": "45-4029", "category": "Agriculture", "us_employment": 1700, "median_annual_wage": 50840 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 56, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 18, "embodiment": 19, "liability_shield": 4, "trust_premium": 5, "judgment_accountability": 10 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Setting chokers on a turn of logs behind a stump, wedging a barber-chair-prone snag, and clearing a hang-up on a steep pitch are decided by what the ground and the fiber are doing that minute — an 18 rather than a 14 because even the recordkeeping side of the job (scale slips, load tickets) is a few minutes a shift, not the substance of it.", "embodiment": "Nineteen because the work is performed on unimproved slope with a running saw or live cable in rain, mud, and cold, and there is no version of it done from a cab or a console — the only points off are the days spent on a landing or deck where the footing is at least graded.", "liability_shield": "There is no state license to cut timber; what you carry is a first-aid/CPR card and OSHA 1910.266 logging-standard training the employer is required to provide, and the citation for an unsafe felling area goes to the company, not to your name.", "trust_premium": "You are paid by the load, the thousand board feet, or the hour, and the landowner or mill contracts with the outfit — a 5 rather than 0 only because small-tract owners and gyppo crews do rehire the faller they know won't leave a mess or hit the fence line.", "judgment_accountability": "You call lean, escape route, notch depth, and whether a leaner comes down now or gets pulled — real calls with your own life in them, but they sit at 10 because the harvest plan, unit boundaries, and cutting prescription are handed to you by a forester or the state marking rules." }, "rationale": "This is chainsaw, cable, and log-deck work on uneven forest ground in weather — bucking, limbing, choker setting, rigging, running skidders and loaders, judging lean and hang-ups on the fly. Almost none of that is text or screen work, and field robotics cannot yet walk a steep unimproved slope and read a leaning tree. The real threat is mechanization — feller-bunchers, processor heads, and remote-controlled yarders that let three people do what eight used to — plus timber-market cycles, not language models; and there is no license or client relationship to slow that substitution down.", "outlook": "Headcount keeps drifting down through 2035 as mechanized harvesting consolidates crews, but the work that remains — steep-ground, hazard-tree, and field-repair — stays firmly in human hands.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "State-level faller certification with personal sign-off duty: Washington L&I and Oregon OSHA already require documented qualified-faller competency for manual falling; if a state adopted a Canadian-style scheme (BC Forest Safety Council's certified/qualified faller card, where a named certified faller must assess and authorize each danger-tree/hang-up removal and carries personal accountability), the shield rises from a paperwork item to a licensed sign-off", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 6 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Insurer or landowner contract terms requiring a named certified faller or rigging supervisor on site for cable/steep-slope operations before coverage attaches — already appearing in some large industrial timberland contractor prequalification and in tethered-harvesting steep-slope guidance", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Formal danger-tree assessment authority: if state OSHA or federal wildfire contracting (NWCG faller FAL1/FAL2 qualification, already used on incidents) becomes the required standard for hazard-tree removal on public land and post-fire salvage, the role owns a documented go/no-go call on tree lean, rot, and hang-ups under ambiguity", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 5 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift as mechanization takes the flat, uniform, small-diameter ground: the residual manual job becomes the tier machines cannot enter — steep unimproved slopes above tether limits, large old-growth and salvage stems exceeding processor head capacity, fire-damaged and wind-thrown timber with unpredictable stored energy. This raises resistance without any new law, but shrinks headcount at the same time", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "Task resistance and embodiment are already near ceiling — the threat is mechanization eliminating positions, not AI doing the work, so high scores here do not protect employment levels. There is no realistic trust-premium route: buyers purchase logs by volume and grade, and no end customer pays extra for hand-felled timber at any scale that matters. Licensing gains, if they came, would protect the remaining specialists' authority rather than the number of jobs." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 3290, "wage": 39740 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 3670, "wage": 39750 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 3750, "wage": 39780 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 3850, "wage": 41410 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 3080, "wage": 46090 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 3490, "wage": 47110 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 2540, "wage": 52480 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 2160, "wage": 52000 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 1700, "wage": 50840 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": -48.3, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }