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Technicians and associate professionals · code 3351

Customs and border inspectors

Customs and border inspectors check persons and vehicles crossing national borders to administer and enforce relevant government rules and regulations. Tasks include - (a) patrolling national borders and coastal waters to stop persons from illegally entering or leaving the country and from illegally importing or exporting currency or goods; (b) checking travel documents of persons crossing national borders to ensure that they have the necessary authorizations and certificates; (c) inspecting the luggage of persons crossing national borders to ensure that it conforms to government rules and regulations concerning import or export of goods and currencies; (d) examining transport documents and freight of vehicles crossing national borders to ensure conformity with government rules and regulations concerning goods in transit and the import and export of goods, and to verify that necessary payments have been made; (e) detaining persons and seizing prohibited and undeclared goods found to be in violation of immigration and customs laws; (f) coordinating and cooperating with other agencies involved in law enforcement, deportation and prosecution; (g) performing related administrative tasks to record findings, transactions, violations and determinations; (h) when necessary, testifying in a court of law about the circumstances and results of investigations carried out. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Border inspector - Customs inspector - Customs officer - Immigration officer - Passport checking officer

A few tasks are affected, but the heart of the job isn't. It ranks 257 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • hand luggage inspector
  • customs officer
  • immigration officer

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

67.9
Holds up
against AI Minimal Exposure

AI could take on 32.1 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 32.1 = 67.9

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

50.9
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, averaged across 10 US jobs , so treat it as rough

33.8
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 33.5 · hand skill 33.3 · cramped spaces 34.5 · averaged

Kind of hands-on work · hands-on 50+ · caring 4+ of 7 Hands-on, helping and caring for others

Physical work where helping and caring for people is a big part of the job. For care work, whether a machine could do the movements is only half the question. The other half is whether anyone wants one to. The US data counts helping workmates too, so a few trades end up here.

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 50.9 out of 100 for how hands-on it is. The score above only looks at AI tools, not robots, and for work like this robots are the bigger question.

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 52.5, while the average is 32.1. 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. 52.5

    Performing related administrative tasks to record findings, transactions, violations and determinations

    Medium
  2. 48.5

    Checking travel documents of persons crossing national borders to ensure that they have the necessary authorizations and certificates

    Low
  3. 42.5

    Examining transport documents and freight of vehicles crossing national borders to ensure conformity with government rules and regulations concerning goods in transit and the import and export of goods, and to verify that necessary payments have been made

    Low
  4. 30

    Inspecting the luggage of persons crossing national borders to ensure that it conforms to government rules and regulations concerning import or export of goods and currencies

    Low
  5. 28.5

    When necessary, testifying in a court of law about the circumstances and results of investigations carried out.

    Low
  6. 24.5

    Coordinating and cooperating with other agencies involved in law enforcement, deportation and prosecution

    Very Low
  7. 18

    Detaining persons and seizing prohibited and undeclared goods found to be in violation of immigration and customs laws

    Very Low
  8. 12.3

    Patrolling national borders and coastal waters to stop persons from illegally entering or leaving the country and from illegally importing or exporting currency or goods

    Very Low

8 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.

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

AI helps you
66.5
AI does it for you
36.5

Helping wins by 30 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 3113, 5995

Compared with similar jobs

There are 82 jobs in the “Technicians and associate professionals” group, averaging 65.4. This one is above that.