EXPOSED
The core of this job — leading a game of kickball, running a summer camp group, supervising a pool deck, coaxing a shy nine-year-old into the craft circle, calming a dispute between teenagers — is physical, social, and improvisational, and nothing in current AI or robotics touches it. What AI does absorb is the paperwork layer: activity schedules, program flyers, registration processing, attendance and incident write-ups, grant blurbs and parent newsletters. The real threats to this occupation are municipal and nonprofit budget cycles and low wages, not automation; the modal worker here is a part-time camp or community-center leader, not a program director.
Nearly all of this fall was the 2020 shock. It has been climbing back since.
Median pay $26,350 → $36,560 +11.0% 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
+4.1% 327,700 → 341,100 on the projections basis
Growing, and only partly exposed
The BLS expects +4.1% more of these jobs by 2034, and at 64/100 the work is only partly exposed — some tasks are automatable, the core of the job is not. Nothing here is in tension.
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.
~68,100 openings a year on average, including replacing people who leave.
Field ScoutPlay LeaderCamp AdvisorYouth WorkerActivity AideCamp DirectorField AdvisorGuest AdvisorCamp CounselorFitness WorkerTeen CounselorActivities AideActivity LeaderGuest AssociateRecreation AideSocial DirectorSummer CounselorActivities LeaderActivity DirectorPlayground WorkerRecreation LeaderRecreation WorkerRecreational AideActivity Assistant
Holding it up: embodiment . Weakest point: liability shield .
Tasks largely resist digitisation Counting heads on a field trip, spotting a kid who's about to bolt, physically demonstrating a soccer drill, and re-directing forty campers when rain kills the outdoor plan are tasks with no digital substitute — only the scheduling grid, sign-in sheets and the monthly program calendar move to software, which is why this sits at 16 and not 19.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments The work happens on pool decks, gym floors, wooded trail sites, ice rinks and school cafeterias, with lifting of equipment, standing for a full shift and direct physical supervision of children in spaces you don't control — an 18 rather than 20 only because a share of the hours are indoor rec-center rooms.
Certification preferred, not legally required Most positions require nothing beyond CPR/first aid and a background check; CPRP certification and lifeguard or aquatics credentials exist and matter for some postings, but the agency or camp operator carries the negligence exposure, not you personally, so this lands at 5 rather than double digits.
Meaningful discretion You decide in real time whether a scraped knee needs a call home, whether a fight gets a warning or an ejection, and when heat or lightning ends the session — genuine discretion, but bounded by written camp policy, mandated-reporter rules and a supervisor you can radio, which puts it at 11 rather than the mid-teens.
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 (16/20 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 (14/20) is whether buyers specifically pay for a person. Judgment and accountability (11/20) 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 30 of this occupation's 64 points (47%).
Embodiment (18/20) 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 76/100 — SAFE.
State child-care and camp licensing rules that make a named, background-checked, certified adult personally responsible for supervision ratios — e.g. states adopting ACA accreditation or the American Camp Association standards into licensure, or expanding mandatory Red Cross Lifeguard/CPR certification and mandated-reporter liability to all youth program staff. Post-abuse-scandal statutes (Child Victims Act-style windows) and insurer requirements that camps document a certified supervisor present per group push this from a weak credential to a personal-liability signature.
If scheduling, registration, flyers, incident write-ups and grant blurbs are fully absorbed by municipal software, the residual day is almost entirely live supervision and improvisation — but this occupation's routine tier is thin, so the shift is small and it comes with fewer paid hours rather than a better job.
Formalizing the safety and behavioral-crisis role: written protocols where the on-site recreation leader owns the call to close a pool, evacuate for lightning, remove a child, or file a suspected-abuse report — mandated-reporter training laws now extending to youth-serving nonprofits make those calls attributable and consequential rather than informal.
Parents already choose programs by who the counselor is; a visible route upward is therapeutic recreation, where CTRS certification (NCTRC) is required for reimbursement in hospitals, VA facilities, and CMS-surveyed nursing homes — if state Medicaid or CMS conditions activity-program payment on credentialed human staffing, the paid-for-a-human premium hardens for that segment.
The limit. Scores here are already near their capability ceiling; the binding threat is municipal and nonprofit budget contraction plus part-time wage structure, which no dimension on this register measures. Liability and credential gains would raise the score without raising pay or hours.
Adjudication: scored twice independently and the runs disagreed. The change held under every rounding method, so the average was published.
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 21,900 | $38,440 +5% |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 17,850 | $38,790 +6% |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 13,670 | $35,830 -2% |
| Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ | 9,200 | $36,190 -1% |
| Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH | 8,720 | $38,770 +6% |
| San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | 6,510 | $46,290 +27% |
| Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL | 5,610 | $35,460 -3% |
| Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | 5,160 | $32,720 -11% |
| Fairbanks-College, AK | 50 | $61,040 +67% |
| San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA | 2,620 | $57,580 +57% |
| College Station-Bryan, TX | 1,170 | $47,870 +31% |
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 64. 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.