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Clerical support workers · code 4321

Stock clerks

Scanners already count the stock. Finding the missing pallet is still a person.

All five tasks are mostly out of AI's reach, from keeping stock records and ordering to logging deliveries and weighing goods.

What they actually do (and what else they get called)

Stock clerks maintain records of goods produced and production materials received, weighed, issued, dispatched or put into stock. Tasks include - (a) arranging and controlling receipt and dispatch of goods and keeping relevant records; (b) maintaining stock records, verifying issue of goods, estimating needs and making requisitions of new stocks; (c) receiving, storing and issuing tools, spare parts or various equipment, and maintaining relevant records; (d) weighing goods received or produced, or for issue or dispatch, and maintaining relevant records; (e) compiling inventories of furniture and other items received for storage. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Dispatch clerk (stock) - Freight clerk - Stock clerk - Storeroom clerk - Weighing clerk

  • inventory coordinator

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

63 / 100

Mostly holds up against AI

AI can take a few chores off your plate, but most of the day is still yours.

Not the odds you keep your job. It's how much of the everyday work still needs a person, out of 100.

← Robot's turf Human's turf →

The ILO's official verdict: Minimal Exposure

296 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 5 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 36.9 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 36.9 = 63.1.

That's the whole sum. No black box, no secret sauce: you can check it against the ILO's study. ILO group “Minimal Exposure”: A few tasks are affected, but the heart of the job isn't.

This job rates 60.2 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.

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use

Man v Bot · compare

Who holds up better?

Stock clerks 63

v

Go on, try your partner's job. Or your sibling's. We won't tell.

Man v Bot

Where the bot helps, and where the human wins

Bot

What AI takes

The routine stuff. You may not miss it.

  • Stock records and requisitions.
  • Receipt and dispatch tracking.
  • Inventory counts by scanner.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Receiving and checking goods.
  • Sorting out missing and damaged stock.
  • Organising storage.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Warehouse management systems.
  • RFID and automated counting.
  • Working alongside warehouse robots.

Written by a human, from the ILO's task ratings below. Yes, we see the irony. Read it as one person's take.

Meet your two rivals

They're not the same machine. AI software can only reach the parts of a job done on a screen or in words. A chatbot can't climb a ladder. A robot might, one day, if it doesn't fall off.

The AI

Lives in a screen. Never had to fix a boiler.

Threat level: Medium

47 could do without you

It could take over some of the work, and help with more. It could help with 65 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Higher

60 how hands-on

Most of this job needs hands, a body or turning up. That's robot territory, and nobody measures how far robots have got well enough to give you a number. We won't make one up.

So could a robot do the physical part?

Less fine handwork and fewer cramped spaces than a typical hands-on job. That clears one hurdle for machines. It doesn't mean machines are doing this work yet.

Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 32 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

60 How
hands-on
32 How fiddly
and cramped

Kind of hands-on work Hands-on, less fiddly work

The small print

They aren't a robot score, and nothing on this page is. Nobody measures how far robots have got well enough to put a number on it. These are the closest thing we have: how hands-on the job is, and how much fiddly, cramped work it takes, which is what Frey and Osborne found hardest for machines.

From O*NET, averaged across 3 US jobs .

finger skill 36.4 · hand skill 38.7 · cramped spaces 22.1 · averaged · rule: hands-on 50+ · fiddly under 39.4

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 0.8-observed-use measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement

The job, task by task

Every job is really a bundle of tasks. Here's this one unpacked, with how much of each AI could do, out of 100. The score is the average, and averages can hide a lot.

AI's favourite task here scores 43, against an average of 37. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 43

    Maintaining stock records, verifying issue of goods, estimating needs and making requisitions of new stocks

    Low
  2. 39

    Arranging and controlling receipt and dispatch of goods and keeping relevant records

    Low
  3. 39

    Receiving, storing and issuing tools, spare parts, or various equipment and maintaining relevant records

    Low
  4. 38

    Compiling inventories of furniture and other items received for storage

    Low
  5. 27

    Weighing goods received or produced, or for issue or dispatch and maintaining relevant records

    Low

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

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use

Sidekick or replacement?

A tool that makes you faster is a very different thing from one that does the task while you watch. Jobs and Skills Australia measured the two separately, which is handy.

AI helps you
65
AI does it for you
47

Sidekick wins, by 18 points.

How good a match is this?

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

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.8-observed-use matched to Australian jobs 5911, 5912, 7129, 7411

Meanwhile, in real life…

Everything else here is about what AI could do. This is what people actually did. When they asked Claude for help with this kind of work, did they hand the whole task over, or roll their sleeves up and work through it together?

Tiny sample alert This job makes up 0.06% of all the conversations: a tiny slice, mostly the paperwork rather than the work. People using AI for a job isn't the same as AI being able to do it.

Out of every 100 conversations

54
46

worked through it together handed it over

The small print

Anthropic publishes this about its own product, and it doesn't feed into any score here. These are people who use Claude, not workers in general, so little use here doesn't mean AI can't reach the job.

These two add up to 100. The bars elsewhere on the page don't, because each is scored on its own, so we don't put them side by side.

observed use Anthropic Economic Index release 2026-06-26, period beginning 2026-05-01 data 0.8-observed-use 2026-05-01 · Anthropic, about its own product

So, should stock clerks be worried?

Short answer: not much. Some of the chores will change, and good riddance.

Parts of it are changing. Stock records, receipts and dispatches, issuing tools, inventories and weighing goods all rate Low. Warehouse systems and scanners take on the record-keeping, so the work leans towards handling goods and fixing discrepancies.

Worth remembering: we score tasks, not jobs. When AI takes on a task, the job usually reshuffles around it rather than vanishing.

Where this job could lead

How are the neighbours doing?

There are 29 jobs in the “Clerical support workers” family, averaging 46. This one is above the family average.

Pit this against any other job →