{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/parts-salespersons/",
  "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": "Parts Salespersons",
    "soc_code": "41-2022",
    "category": "Sales",
    "us_employment": 270070,
    "median_annual_wage": 38630
  },
  "verdict": "COOKED",
  "risk_resistance": 30,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 7,
    "embodiment": 10,
    "liability_shield": 1,
    "trust_premium": 7,
    "judgment_accountability": 5
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "A 7 rather than a 4 because VIN decoding, fitment checks, and price quoting are already handled by Epicor/PartsTech-style catalogs, but the residual — diagnosing what a customer means when they bring in a broken bracket with no part number, cross-referencing a superseded OEM number against three aftermarket brands, and pulling and staging the stock — still needs a person at the counter; a 12 would require most shifts to be non-catalog work, and they aren't.",
    "embodiment": "A 10 fits a job spent walking bins and back rooms, unloading hotshot deliveries, lifting rotors and batteries onto the counter, and physically inspecting cores for cracked housings or leaked fluid — real bodily work, but inside a lit, shelved, climate-adjacent store, not a roof or a trench, which is what separates this from 15+.",
    "liability_shield": "A 1 because no state licenses parts counter work; if you sell the wrong brake caliper, the store eats the return and the installing shop or manufacturer carries the failure exposure, and nothing about you personally is on file with a regulator.",
    "trust_premium": "A 7 reflects that the fleet manager and the independent shop foreman who call the same counter person by name and expect their account terms and preferred brands remembered represent real repeat relationships, but most walk-in DIY volume is a one-time transaction that migrates to whichever website has the part in stock cheaper.",
    "judgment_accountability": "A 5 because most calls are bounded by the catalog, the warranty policy, and a return window with a manager override above a dollar threshold — the discretion you do exercise, like accepting a marginal core or advising a customer to buy the OEM instead of the economy line, is real but low-stakes and reversible."
  },
  "rationale": "The core of the job — looking up part numbers by VIN or model, checking fitment, quoting prices, taking orders, and processing returns — is exactly the catalog-lookup and classification work that software already does well, and e-commerce parts platforms have been eating it for a decade. What survives is physical: pulling stock from bins, receiving and shelving freight, inspecting cores and warranty returns, and standing at a counter helping a mechanic or DIYer figure out what actually broke. Median workers sit in retail and dealership counters where headcount per store keeps falling as online ordering absorbs the lookup volume.",
  "outlook": "Expect continued headcount decline as online ordering and AI lookup absorb counter volume; the jobs that remain concentrate in commercial/wholesale desks, specialty parts, and warehouse-side inventory roles.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "embodiment",
        "change": "Counter work consolidating into hub-and-spoke distribution: if store counters shrink but regional DC pick/pack, core inspection, and hotshot delivery roles absorb the headcount, the surviving job is physical bin-pulling, freight receiving, and hands-on core/warranty inspection in cluttered non-standard stockrooms that pick robots don't handle at auto-parts SKU breadth (millions of part numbers, irregular packaging).",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift to the diagnostic tier: the job genuinely has two tiers — catalog lookup, and the counter conversation where a DIYer describes a noise or brings in a broken part with no number. If e-commerce absorbs all clean-lookup volume, what remains at the counter is identify-from-fragment, supersession/interchange disputes, and fitment failures the catalog got wrong — work that requires holding the part.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Warranty and core adjudication authority: if manufacturers push more first-line warranty denial/approval and core credit decisions onto the counter person (as dealership parts departments already do for OEM warranty claims subject to manufacturer audit chargeback), the role owns money decisions under ambiguous evidence of abuse vs. defect.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Commercial account relationships: independent repair shops paying a premium to a specific jobber counter because the counterperson knows their bays, catches wrong-fitment orders before the car is on the lift, and eats the cost of a bad call — the existing basis of the commercial-vs-retail split at NAPA/CarQuest jobbers. This is a real but narrow premium and it does not extend to DIY retail.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "No realistic liability_shield route — there is no license to sell parts and no statutory signature requirement anywhere in the US; that dimension stays near zero. The embodiment and task-mix gains are gains per surviving worker, not gains in total headcount: the occupation can become harder to automate while shrinking sharply. Realistic ceiling is low-to-mid 40s."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 252770,
        "wage": 29380
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 254870,
        "wage": 30430
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 256170,
        "wage": 31710
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 253870,
        "wage": 32460
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 265130,
        "wage": 34260
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 259280,
        "wage": 35800
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 260770,
        "wage": 36860
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 265060,
        "wage": 37440
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 270070,
        "wage": 38630
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 6.8,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [
    {
      "slug": "first-line-supervisors-of-gambling-services-workers",
      "title": "First-Line Supervisors of Gambling Services Workers",
      "verdict": "EXPOSED",
      "risk_resistance": 57,
      "median_wage": 63820,
      "overlap": 54,
      "skills_to_close": [
        "Management of Personnel Resources",
        "Monitoring",
        "Systems Analysis",
        "Systems Evaluation"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}