{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/timing-device-assemblers-and-adjusters/", "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": "Timing Device Assemblers and Adjusters", "soc_code": "51-2061", "category": "Production", "us_employment": 250, "median_annual_wage": 62620 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 49, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 15, "embodiment": 16, "liability_shield": 2, "trust_premium": 8, "judgment_accountability": 8 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Truing a balance wheel, bending a hairspring's terminal curve to get isochronism across positions, and beat-setting an escapement are decided by feel and by watching amplitude change under a loupe — no text or image model produces that correction, which is why this sits at 15 rather than in the mixed band; the points it loses are for the paperwork side, timing-machine readouts, parts ordering, and repair estimates that software already handles.", "embodiment": "Every duty runs through tweezers, staking sets, ultrasonic cleaners and lubricant applied in microlitre doses to jewel holes — nothing is completed on a screen, though the work happens at a fixed dust-controlled bench rather than in the field.", "liability_shield": "No state licence, no certification requirement, no signed attestation on a serviced movement; the 2 reflects only that a factory-trained or WOSTEP-style credential occasionally gates access to warranty work for a specific brand, and the manufacturer, not you, carries the guarantee.", "trust_premium": "Collectors bringing a vintage chronograph do ask for a named watchmaker by reputation and come back for the next service, but most of the 250 jobs are on manufacturer or instrument-assembly benches where the customer never learns who adjusted the movement.", "judgment_accountability": "You decide whether a worn pivot gets burnished or the staff replaced, and whether a movement out of tolerance in the vertical positions needs poising or a new spring — real calls with real cost, but made against factory tolerance specs and timing-machine numbers, not in open ambiguity, and a wrong call costs a service redo rather than anyone's safety." }, "rationale": "This is micro-manual work — setting escapements, adjusting hairsprings, regulating movements under a loupe, cleaning and lubricating parts measured in fractions of a millimeter — and language AI does none of it. The real pressure came decades ago from automated movement assembly lines and offshoring, which is why national employment sits at roughly 250 people; what remains is largely high-end assembly, calibration, and adjustment where hand feel and visual inspection still beat machines. There is no licensure and no signature requirement, so the moat is purely dexterity plus scarce craft skill, and the occupation's tiny size makes it fragile to any single employer's decisions.", "outlook": "The occupation stays very small but the surviving jobs shift almost entirely toward luxury and vintage service work, where hand adjustment and direct customer accountability keep skilled watchmakers employable and in short supply.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Formal certification/hallmark schemes that explicitly designate hand-finished, hand-regulated movements — e.g. expansion of the Geneva Seal (Poin\\u00e7on de Gen\\u00e8ve), the Fleurier Quality Foundation certificate, or a US-side equivalent from the American Watchmakers-Clockmakers Institute — being used as a marketing precondition by luxury brands, so that buyers pay a documented premium for a named human adjuster. Also visible: independent watchmaking (AHCI-style) resale premiums and brands publishing the assembler's signature on the movement.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 5 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift as remaining volume work moves offshore or to automated assembly lines: the US-resident residue becomes almost purely final regulation, chronometry adjustment to COSC/METAS-type tolerances, and warranty rework on vintage/complicated pieces, where positional error correction depends on hand feel rather than programmed motion. This raises the share of the day machines cannot do without any new law.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Consolidation of high-value restoration and complication service into a small number of authorized service centers where a named watchmaker decides whether an irreplaceable original component is repaired, replaced, or left alone on a six-figure timepiece \\u2014 an unrecoverable call made under ambiguity, with brand-level and insurance consequences attached to the individual.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Only narrow route: aerospace/defense and metrology contexts where a calibration technician must sign a certificate traceable to NIST under ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation, with the signer named on the record. If timing-device work sits inside an accredited calibration lab, a named human signature becomes contractually required \\u2014 but this is contract and accreditation, not licensure, and carries no personal liability.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 } ], "ceiling_note": "With ~250 national workers, no licensure body, and no statutory signature, the institutional dimensions have little to grip. Any single luxury brand's decision to centralize service abroad or install automated regulation rigs outweighs every lever listed here; scarcity is the moat and also the fragility." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2019, "emp": 1260, "wage": 35080 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 1000, "wage": 36170 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 560, "wage": 37780 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 370, "wage": 42290 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 400, "wage": 48840 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 230, "wage": 40790 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 250, "wage": 62620 } ], "from": 2019, "to": 2025, "change_pct": -80.2, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": false }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "refractory-materials-repairers-except-brickmasons", "title": "Refractory Materials Repairers, Except Brickmasons", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 65, "median_wage": 61290, "overlap": 86, "skills_to_close": [ "Coordination" ] }, { "slug": "crane-and-tower-operators", "title": "Crane and Tower Operators", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 67, "median_wage": 68080, "overlap": 75, "skills_to_close": [ "Operation and Control", "Active Learning", "Operations Monitoring", "Mathematics" ] }, { "slug": "operating-engineers-and-other-construction-equipment-operators", "title": "Operating Engineers and Other Construction Equipment Operators", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 64, "median_wage": 59850, "overlap": 74, "skills_to_close": [ "Operation and Control", "Active Learning", "Coordination", "Equipment Maintenance" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }