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Technicians and associate professionals · code 3324

Trade brokers

Trade brokers buy and sell commodities and shipping services, usually in bulk, on behalf of their own company or for customers on a commission basis. Tasks include - (a) establishing contact between buyers and sellers of commodities; (b) discussing buying or selling requirements of clients and giving advice accordingly; (c) buying and selling cargo space on ships; (d) negotiating purchase or sale of commodities and commodity futures; (e) finding cargo and/or storage space for commodities and negotiating freight, shipping and storage charges; (f) monitoring and analysing market trends and other factors affecting the supply and demand for commodities and shipping services. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Commodities broker - Commodity futures dealer - Shipping broker Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Finance broker - 3311 - Finance dealer - 3311 - Securities broker - 3311 - Securities dealer - 3311 - Insurance dealer - 3321

A good share of the tasks are affected. It ranks 351 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • commodity trader
  • wholesale merchant
  • commodity broker
  • non-vessel operating common carrier

Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.

55.5
Holds up
against AI Exposed: Gradient 2

AI could take on 44.5 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 44.5 = 55.5

That's the whole sum, and you can check it against the ILO's study.

34.1
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, averaged across 4 US jobs

13.1
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 19.9 · hand skill 9.8 · cramped spaces 9.6 · averaged

Kind of hands-on work · hands-on under 50 Less than half hands-on

Less than half of this job is hands-on. Robots still matter, but for a smaller part of the work, so we don't sort it any further.

estimated O*NET 31.0 BLS occupational crosswalk chain ISCO-08 to 2010 SOC (Aug 2012, rev. Jun 2015); 2010 to 2018 SOC (Nov 2017); O*NET-SOC 2019 taxonomy data 0.7-work-setting measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement

What this number leaves out This job rates 34.1 out of 100 for how hands-on it is. The score above only looks at AI tools, not robots, but for work this far from the physical that matters less.

The tasks behind the score

The score is the average of these. A job is really a bundle of tasks, and an average can hide how uneven that bundle is.

The task AI could do most of scores 61.5, while the average is 44.5. A big gap means some of this job is wide open to AI and some of it barely at all. That's quite different from a job where everything sits somewhere in the middle, even when the averages match.

  1. 61.5

    Monitoring and analysing market trends and other factors affecting the supply and demand for commodities and shipping services.

    Medium
  2. 46.5

    Establishing contact between buyers and sellers of commodities

    Low
  3. 45

    Finding cargo and/or storage space for commodities and negotiating freight, shipping and storage charges

    Low
  4. 41.5

    Discussing buying or selling requirements of clients and giving advice accordingly

    Low
  5. 41

    Buying and selling cargo space on ships

    Low
  6. 31.3

    Negotiating purchase or sale of commodities and commodity futures

    Low

6 tasks · the High to Very Low labels are the ILO's

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.7-work-setting

Helped, or replaced?

The score above can't tell a tool that makes you faster from one that does the task instead of you. Jobs and Skills Australia looked at those two things separately, and this is their result, matched to this job.

3 Australian jobs match this one, and we've simply averaged them. Treat the numbers as a rough guide.

AI helps you
74
AI does it for you
51.3

Helping wins by 22.7 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 1499, 2221, 2222

Compared with similar jobs

There are 82 jobs in the “Technicians and associate professionals” group, averaging 65.5. This one is below that.