{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/refractory-materials-repairers-except-brickmasons/",
  "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": "Refractory Materials Repairers, Except Brickmasons",
    "soc_code": "49-9045",
    "category": "Trades",
    "us_employment": 1080,
    "median_annual_wage": 61290
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 65,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 18,
    "embodiment": 20,
    "liability_shield": 6,
    "trust_premium": 9,
    "judgment_accountability": 12
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Breaking out a spalled ladle lining with a chipping hammer, judging by sound and feel where the safe brick starts, then laying new shapes to a curved profile with expansion allowance is entirely manual craft work with no digital analogue — an 18 rather than 20 only because gunning castable and shotcrete placement is already partly machine-fed and mix design, wear mapping and reline scheduling are moving to software.",
    "embodiment": "You enter cooled but still-warm vessels through a manhole, work off scaffolding or a ladder inside a kiln shell, breathe silica and alumina dust under a respirator, and handle 60-pound refractory bags in a space with one exit — there is no version of this performed remotely or on a bench, which is why it sits at the ceiling.",
    "liability_shield": "No state licence exists for refractory repair; what you carry is a confined-space entry permit under 29 CFR 1910.146, a hot-work permit, respirator fit-test records and maybe NCCER credentials — real gatekeeping on who walks into the vessel, but the plant and the refractory contractor own the consequences if a lining fails, not you personally, so it stops at 6.",
    "trust_premium": "Mills bring back the same crew for the next campaign because you know that particular BOF's wear pattern and where the last breakout started, and that history has value — but the work is bid as contract shutdown labour, the customer is a maintenance planner rather than a person choosing you, and a competent competitor with the same drawings can do the reline, which holds it at 9.",
    "judgment_accountability": "Calling how deep to cut back a damaged lining, whether a hot face can survive one more heat, and when a hairline in the working lining means stop the reline and inspect the safety lining are decisions made on the spot with a shutdown clock running — genuine discretion, but bounded by the refractory supplier's installation spec, cure schedules and the maintenance engineer's sign-off, which keeps it below the 14+ band."
  },
  "rationale": "This job is chipping out spalled brick and slag inside cooled furnaces, ladles and kilns, mixing and gunning castable refractory, cutting and fitting shapes in confined, hot, dust-choked spaces — none of it is screen work and none of it is within reach of current robotics. AI can help with mix specs, wear-life records and shutdown scheduling, not with crawling into a ladle. The real threat to this 1,000-person occupation is the contraction of domestic steel, foundry, glass and cement capacity, not language models.",
  "outlook": "The physical work stays human through the 2030s; headcount tracks the number of operating furnaces in the US far more than it tracks AI.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Mandatory API 936 certification (already required by many refiners/EPC contracts for FCC and heater refractory installation and QC) extended by insurers or state boiler/pressure-vessel rules to steel-ladle, kiln and glass-tank relining — i.e. a named certified installer/inspector signs off on dryout and cure records and carries personal qualification risk. Also: OSHA 1910.146 permit-required confined space entry already needs a named authorized entrant/attendant; if a rule made the refractory crew lead the accountable competent person for hot-work and shell-integrity sign-off, the shield hardens.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 5
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Refractory suppliers tying material warranties to installation by their own factory-certified crews (already common practice with monolithic gunning and precast shapes) — buyers then pay specifically for the credentialed human crew, not the cheapest labor. Widening of this warranty-linked crew requirement across cement and glass would raise it.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "The call that matters is 'can this vessel run one more campaign' — made on visual and hammer-sound inspection of hot shell and residual lining thickness. If plant reliability programs formally designate the refractory lead as the person who authorizes continued service (as some fired-heater and FCC turnaround protocols already do), the ambiguity call becomes owned and documented rather than advisory.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "No new law needed: as thermal-camera wear mapping, mix design and shutdown scheduling get automated, what remains is entirely the confined-space fitting and hot-side judgment tier. This is a genuine two-tier job and the routine tier is the paperwork tier.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "task_resistance and embodiment are already at or near ceiling; there is no headroom worth chasing there. The binding risk to this occupation is not capability but demand — domestic steel, foundry, glass and cement capacity. No liability or trust lever offsets the closure of the plants that employ these 1,080 people; a rising register score here would coexist with a shrinking headcount."
  },
  "adjudication": {
    "method": "mean of two independent runs; verdict robust to rounding",
    "outcome": "rescored",
    "run_totals": [
      67,
      63
    ],
    "run_verdicts": [
      "SAFE",
      "EXPOSED"
    ]
  },
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 1310,
        "wage": 48570
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 1120,
        "wage": 52190
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 820,
        "wage": 53990
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 760,
        "wage": 54610
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 660,
        "wage": 54250
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 580,
        "wage": 50550
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 540,
        "wage": 48410
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 1100,
        "wage": 58540
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 1080,
        "wage": 61290
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": -17.6,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}