{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/textile-cutting-machine-setters-operators-and-tenders/",
  "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": "Textile Cutting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders",
    "soc_code": "51-6062",
    "category": "Production",
    "us_employment": 9000,
    "median_annual_wage": 38760
  },
  "verdict": "COOKED",
  "risk_resistance": 28,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 9,
    "embodiment": 12,
    "liability_shield": 1,
    "trust_premium": 2,
    "judgment_accountability": 4
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "A 9 reflects the split inside the shift: the cutting itself — marker nesting, blade path, ply depth on a CNC table — is already software's job, but spreading limp knit goods without bowing the grain, unrolling and matching stripes or plaid across plies, and clearing a jam mid-cut still need hands, which is why the score sits above the fully-automatable band rather than at 14.",
    "embodiment": "You are standing at a 30-foot table lifting bolt rolls, sweeping vacuum-held plies flat, bundling and tying cut parts, and swapping blades or dies — real physical work, but in a lit, climate-stable cutting room with fixed equipment and known material, not a job site or a moving vehicle, which is what keeps it at 12 instead of 17.",
    "liability_shield": "There is no cutting-operator licence anywhere in the US; a plant can put someone on the table the week they are hired, and the OSHA machine-guarding and lockout/tagout duties under 29 CFR 1910.212 and 1910.147 land on the employer, not on you personally — hence a 1.",
    "trust_premium": "The buyer of the finished garment never learns who cut the panels; your output is bundled, ticketed by size and lot, and passed to sewing, so the only relationship that matters is with the floor supervisor who checks your yield — that internal familiarity is why it is 2 and not 0.",
    "judgment_accountability": "The calls you make — how many plies to stack, when a blade is dull, whether a flaw gets spliced around — are real but bounded by the marker, the spec sheet, and the tolerance the plant already set, and a wrong call costs fabric yardage rather than anyone's safety or a contract, which places this at 4."
  },
  "rationale": "The core loop — load fabric, set blade height and marker layout, run the cut, inspect pieces, clear scrap — is exactly what computer-controlled cutting tables and automated spreaders were built to do, and nesting software already optimizes marker layout better than hand placement. What holds the job in place is not AI difficulty but capital cost: handling limp, stretchy, slippery goods and re-threading a misfeed remains awkward for machines, so plants keep humans on the floor. Employment is already small (9,000) and shrinking with domestic apparel volume, so displacement here looks like plants consolidating onto CNC tables rather than a sudden AI event.",
  "outlook": "By the mid-2030s most remaining US cutting rooms will run automated tables with one technician-operator each, so the surviving jobs will be fewer, more technical, and better paid than today's tending roles.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "embodiment",
        "change": "If the surviving domestic cut-and-sew niches concentrate further in limp, high-variability materials — leather hides and technical performance knits — where each ply must be judged and hand-placed around defects, the remaining work is fabric handling no gantry table does reliably (Gerber/Lectra leather nesting still requires an operator to mark hide flaws)",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift: once CNC tables and nesting software own straight-goods production runs, the human tier left is spreading tension calibration on stretch knits, shade/dye-lot matching across rolls, misfeed recovery, and first-article verification against pattern tolerance. This is a genuine two-tier job and the judgment tier is a real residual",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "If Berry Amendment / DFARS 252.225-7012 defense apparel work (uniforms, body armor shells, parachutes) grows as a share of domestic cutting, operators sign first-article and in-process inspection records under a documented quality system, making the cut-approval call attributable to a named person",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Realistic ceiling is roughly the high 30s. Nothing licenses a cutting-table operator, no buyer specifies a human tender, and the binding constraint is domestic apparel volume, not AI capability — a shrinking denominator caps every lever regardless of how the score moves."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 14150,
        "wage": 26890
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 13310,
        "wage": 28220
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 13210,
        "wage": 28730
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 12650,
        "wage": 29910
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 11970,
        "wage": 29960
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 10700,
        "wage": 34420
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 9760,
        "wage": 36620
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 8960,
        "wage": 37940
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 9000,
        "wage": 38760
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": -36.4,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [
    {
      "slug": "refractory-materials-repairers-except-brickmasons",
      "title": "Refractory Materials Repairers, Except Brickmasons",
      "verdict": "EXPOSED",
      "risk_resistance": 65,
      "median_wage": 61290,
      "overlap": 89,
      "skills_to_close": [
        "Service Orientation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "slug": "paper-goods-machine-setters-operators-and-tenders",
      "title": "Paper Goods Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders",
      "verdict": "EXPOSED",
      "risk_resistance": 38,
      "median_wage": 50270,
      "overlap": 84,
      "skills_to_close": [
        "Persuasion",
        "Service Orientation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "slug": "furniture-finishers",
      "title": "Furniture Finishers",
      "verdict": "EXPOSED",
      "risk_resistance": 52,
      "median_wage": 44540,
      "overlap": 83,
      "skills_to_close": [
        "Service Orientation",
        "Persuasion",
        "Instructing",
        "Learning Strategies"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}