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Service and sales workers · code 5152

Domestic housekeepers

Domestic housekeepers organize, supervise and carry out housekeeping functions in private households and small accommodation establishments with or without the support of subordinate staff. Tasks include - (a) supervising workers employed in households as domestic staff; (b) purchasing or controlling the purchase of supplies; (c) controlling storage and issue of supplies; (d) assisting in cases of minor injury or illness by performing tasks such as taking temperature, giving medicine, putting on bandages; (e) sweeping or vacuum-cleaning, washing and polishing floors, furniture and other fixtures. (f) making beds, cleaning bathrooms, supplying towels, soap and related items; (g) taking care of household pets and plants, receiving visitors, answering telephones, delivering messages and shopping for groceries; (h) preparing and cooking meals, setting and clearing tables and serving food and beverages; (i) cleaning kitchens and generally helping with kitchen work, including dishwashing. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Bed and breakfast operator - Domestic housekeeper - Butler Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Hotel manager - 1411 - Domestic helper - 9111 Note Operators of small accommodation establishments, such as some bed and breakfast establishments and small guest houses that provide accommodation and limited meal services to clients effectively as paying guests in private households, and for whom the management and supervision of staff is not a significant component of the work, are classified in Unit Group 5152: Domestic Housekeepers.

None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count. It ranks 142 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • domestic housekeeper
  • bed and breakfast operator

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

80.1
Holds up
against AI Not Exposed

AI could take on 19.9 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 19.9 = 80.1

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

55.9
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, matched to one US job

29.5
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 30.3 · hand skill 30.3 · cramped spaces 28 · 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

This number is probably too high

This score only looks at AI tools like chatbots. It doesn't look at robots at all — and this job rates 55.9 out of 100 for how hands-on it is, which is exactly where robots come in.

Have a look at the tasks below and judge for yourself. The ILO scored them low because a chatbot can't do them. Whether a machine with hands could is a different question, and we can't answer it yet.

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 37.3, while the average is 19.9. 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. 37.3

    Purchasing or controlling the purchase of supplies

    Low
  2. 28.5

    Controlling storage and issue of supplies

    Low
  3. 28.5

    Taking care of household pets and plants, receiving visitors, answering telephones, delivering messages and shopping for groceries

    Low
  4. 27

    Supervising workers employed in households as domestic staff

    Low
  5. 13.8

    Making beds, cleaning bathrooms, supplying towels, soap and related items

    Very Low
  6. 13.8

    Preparing and cooking meals, setting and clearing tables and serving food and beverages.

    Very Low
  7. 12

    Cleaning kitchens and generally helping with kitchen work, including dishwashing.

    Very Low
  8. 9.5

    Assisting in cases of minor injury or illness by performing tasks such as taking temperature, giving medicine, putting on bandages

    Very Low
  9. 9.3

    Sweeping or vacuum-cleaning, washing and polishing floors, furniture and other fixtures.

    Very Low

9 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
53
AI does it for you
24

Helping wins by 29 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 1419, 4518, 8114

Compared with similar jobs

There are 39 jobs in the “Service and sales workers” group, averaging 74.3. This one is above that.