{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/miscellaneous-construction-and-related-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": "Miscellaneous Construction and Related Workers",
    "soc_code": "47-4090",
    "category": "Construction",
    "us_employment": 28380,
    "median_annual_wage": 49910
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 63,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 18,
    "embodiment": 19,
    "liability_shield": 5,
    "trust_premium": 10,
    "judgment_accountability": 11
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Setting segmental pavers to grade by hand, pumping and hosing out septic tanks, blowing cellulose into knee-wall cavities, and hand-digging around live utility laterals are tasks where the variability of the substrate — soil, existing structure, unmarked pipe — defeats fixed-path machinery, which is why this sits at 18 rather than in the 14 range where more repetitive prefab or panel work would land.",
    "embodiment": "A 19 reflects excavation, confined-space tank entry, roof and crawlspace access, respirators for insulation dust, and lifting pavers or block all day in whatever weather the schedule hands you — the only thing keeping it off 20 is the fraction of these titles that includes some shop or staging work.",
    "liability_shield": "Most of these titles hire off a résumé and an OSHA 10 card; septic servicers may need a state pumper registration and confined-space or lead-RRP certification, but nobody stamps a drawing and nobody's personal license is on the line when the work fails — the GC's or the licensed sub's is, which is why 5 and not 11.",
    "trust_premium": "A 10 recognizes that repeat septic and weatherization work builds a homeowner-level relationship and that GCs re-call crews they trust to show up and not damage the site, but the customer signs with the company, not you, and the next job comes from the dispatcher.",
    "judgment_accountability": "An 11 covers the real calls made without a supervisor present — stopping the shovel when you hit an unmarked line, deciding a base isn't compacted enough to set on, judging whether a tank lid is safe to stand on — while acknowledging that grades, specs, and sequencing come down from someone else."
  },
  "rationale": "This is a catch-all bucket — segmental paving crews, tank/septic servicers, weatherization and specialty trade helpers, general 'all other' construction roles — and the modal worker spends the day on a job site placing, cutting, fitting, digging, and hauling in weather and dirt, which no shipping robot does. Language AI touches almost none of the core work; the exposure is in the thin paperwork layer (permits, daily logs, material takeoffs, scheduling) and in AI-assisted planning that trims crew hours. The reason the score isn't in electrician territory is credential thinness: most of these titles carry no state license, no stamped sign-off, and no named client relationship, so wages and bargaining power rest on labor supply rather than a legal moat.",
  "outlook": "Demand holds through the 2030s on infrastructure and retrofit work — AI won't touch the hands-on tasks — but pay stays flat for anyone without a card, a machine, or a foreman's clipboard.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Extension of state licensing/certification with personal sign-off to currently unlicensed niches in this bucket: e.g. state onsite-wastewater (septic) installer/servicer licensing with a named licensee certifying each system installation or pump-out manifest (already law in NC, TX, MA Title 5 system inspectors); or DOE/state weatherization work requiring a BPI-certified individual to sign the post-retrofit blower-door and combustion-safety test before rebate payout, which utility programs increasingly require",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 5
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "OSHA or state adoption of a confined-space/excavation rule requiring a named, individually credentialed competent person on site — not a remote supervisor — to certify trench protective systems and entry permits daily, with personal citation exposure (29 CFR 1926 Subpart P already names a competent person; making the designation a portable credential with personal liability rather than an employer designation is the specific change to watch)",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Formalizing the field-condition call as the credentialed worker's own: rules that make the on-site competent person's stop-work or soil-classification decision binding over the schedule, and utility damage-prevention statutes (811/one-call) that put the personal duty to hand-expose and verify utility locations on the named excavator rather than the AI-generated locate map",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift as the paperwork tier is automated away: if permits, logs, takeoffs and scheduling move to software, the remaining day is diagnosis and repair of nonstandard existing conditions — failing tanks, unknown buried utilities, out-of-spec substrates — which is the judgment tier. This only holds for the servicing/retrofit titles in the bucket, not for the helper and hauling titles, where automating the paperwork removes nothing and the work stays commodity labor",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Only a narrow route: named-technician branding in residential septic/weatherization service where the homeowner is the buyer and repeat relationship exists, reinforced by warranty terms naming the certifying individual. For paving crews, tank hauling, and trade helpers working under a GC, there is no buyer who can express a preference for a specific human and no plausible mechanism to create one",
        "plausibility": "unlikely",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Embodiment and task_resistance are near maximum already; there is no upside there, and the whole realistic gain is institutional. The bucket is not one job: the licensable niches (septic/onsite wastewater, weatherization testing) could plausibly reach the mid-70s on liability shield alone, while 'construction workers, all other' helpers and haulers have no credentialing body seeking jurisdiction over them and no client relationship, so their exposure is set by labor supply and construction demand, not by AI capability, and no lever listed here reaches them."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 34720,
        "wage": 38040
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 33340,
        "wage": 38860
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 32040,
        "wage": 39720
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 32050,
        "wage": 39660
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 30920,
        "wage": 39850
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 29880,
        "wage": 44890
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 28930,
        "wage": 47090
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 33530,
        "wage": 48120
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 28380,
        "wage": 49910
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": -18.3,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}