COOKED
The core loop — load stock, set fences and feed rates, run a shaper/router/sander, inspect dimensions against a spec, log counts — is exactly what CNC machining centers and automated nesting lines were built to absorb, and the threat here is factory automation plus AI-generated toolpaths rather than chatbots. Real embodiment protects part of the day: jigs, fixtures, tool changes, sanding out defects, and wrestling warped or knotty stock still need hands in a shop. But there is no license, no signature, no customer relationship, and most decisions are executing a cut list someone else wrote.
Part 2020 shock, part continued decline in the years since.
Median pay $30,990 → $43,380 +12.0% 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
-1.8% 63,100 → 61,900 on the projections basis
Exposed, and shrinking
Both signals point the same way: the tasks are largely automatable and the BLS projects -1.8% by 2034. This is the case where the score and the forecast agree, and it is the one worth taking seriously.
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.
~6,400 openings a year on average, including replacing people who leave.
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Holding it up: embodiment . Weakest point: liability shield .
Mixed — a routine tier and a judgment tier Setting a shaper fence, dialing feed rates, and running parts to a cut list is already what a CNC router with a nested-based toolpath does unattended overnight — the 9 rather than a 4 is because reading grain direction on warped or knotty hardwood, shimming a jig that's drifting, and hand-sanding tearout off a profile still stop the machine from running lights-out.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments You are standing at the machine all shift — hauling sheet goods and rough lumber onto the table, changing router bits and shaper cutters, clearing chip buildup, feeling for burn marks and snipe — and a woodshop with sawdust, moisture-variable stock, and pinch points is nothing like a clean cell, which is what puts this at 14 rather than the 8 of a bench assembler.
No licence, no signature requirement There is no state license, no board, no stamp on the part: OSHA machine-guarding rules bind the employer, not you, and if a door stile comes out undersized the shop eats the scrap — the 1 rather than 0 reflects only in-house safety and machine-specific sign-offs that carry no legal weight outside the plant.
Executes defined procedures on defined inputs The engineering drawing, cut list, and tooling sheet arrive already specified, and your calls — bump the feed to kill chatter, flip a board for better face, pull a part that's out of tolerance — are corrections inside a fixed spec rather than decisions about what gets made, which is a 5 and not a 2 only because a bad grain call or missed setup can scrap an expensive run of hardwood.
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 (9/20 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 (1/20) is whether the law requires a licensed human to sign. Trust premium (2/20) is whether buyers specifically pay for a person. Judgment and accountability (5/20) 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 8 of this occupation's 31 points (26%).
Embodiment (14/20) 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 44/100 — EXPOSED.
Task-mix shift within the shop: as nested-panel and repeat-run work migrates to CNC cells, the residual human role concentrates on solid-hardwood and one-off architectural millwork — reading grain and figure, matching color across a job, compensating for wood movement and warp, hand-setting shaper knives for custom profiles. This tier genuinely resists automation because the workpiece is non-uniform and the spec is often 'match this existing molding'. Watch for job postings shifting from 'machine tender' to 'millwork machinist / custom profile setup'.
Consolidation of setter and programmer roles: where a shop cannot afford separate CAM programmers, the operator owns toolpath edits, feed/speed calls, scrap-vs-rework decisions on expensive figured stock, and first-article approval. If the shop's quality system formally designates the setter as first-article inspector signing off before production release (common under ISO 9001 / AWI Quality Certification Program for architectural woodwork), the role owns a consequential call.
If the surviving work is dominated by large, heavy, warped solid stock and short-run custom setups (fixture fabrication, knife grinding and setting, tool changes on manual shapers, hand-sanding defect rework), the physical unpredictability per hour rises even as headcount falls. Also: on-site millwork fitting and finish work in occupied buildings, which no gantry serves.
Only narrow route: bespoke and historic-restoration millwork where the buyer specifically contracts hand-set profiles or period-correct tooling — e.g. work under Secretary of the Interior's Standards for historic rehabilitation, or high-end furniture makers marketing hand-worked joinery. This applies to a small slice of the 61k and does not lift the occupation broadly.
The limit. Realistic ceiling is low-to-mid 40s. There is no licensing body for woodworking machine operation and no plausible bill creating one, so liability_shield has no route at all — omitted deliberately. Every lever here raises the score of the job that remains while the number of such jobs falls; task-mix shift is not employment protection.
| Grand Rapids-Wyoming-Kentwood, MI | 2,780 | $47,720 +10% |
| Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ | 1,250 | $40,440 -7% |
| Elkhart-Goshen, IN | 1,070 | $44,790 +3% |
| Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA | 1,010 | $37,370 -14% |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 920 | $42,860 -1% |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 850 | $45,660 +5% |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 820 | $49,050 +13% |
| Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, NC | 720 | $38,310 -12% |
| Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA | 70 | $60,070 +38% |
| Longview-Kelso, WA | 70 | $59,550 +37% |
| Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI | 320 | $56,950 +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 31. 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.