Service and sales workers · code 5322
Home-based personal care workers
Home-based personal care workers provide routine personal care and assistance with activities of daily living to persons who are in need of such care due to effects of ageing, illness, injury, or other physical or mental conditions, in private homes and other independent residential settings. Tasks include - (a) assisting clients with personal and therapeutic care needs such as personal hygiene, feeding, dressing, physical mobility and exercise, communication, taking oral medications and changing dressings, usually according to care plans established by a health professional; (b) maintaining records of client care, changes in condition and responses to care and treatment, and reporting concerns or providing referrals to a health or social services professional; (c) positioning and lifting clients with physical mobility challenges, and helping transport them in wheelchairs and motor vehicles; (d) providing clients and families with emotional support, information and advice on topics such as nutrition, hygiene, exercise, caring for infants or adapting to disability or illness; (e) maintaining clients’ environmental hygiene standards, such as changing bed linen, washing clothes and dishes, and cleaning living quarters; (f) providing psychological support to clients such as through conversation or reading aloud; (g) planning, purchasing, preparing or serving meals to meet nutritional requirements and prescribed diets; (h) providing support to parents and care for newborns during the postpartum period; (i) scheduling and accompanying clients for appointments with medical doctors and other health professionals, or performing other errands. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Home birth assistant - Home care aide - Nursing aide (home) - Personal care provider Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Nurse (professional) - 2221 - Social worker (professional) - 2635 - Nurse (associate professional) - 3221 - Social worker (associate professional) - 3412 - Nursing aide (clinic or hospital) - 5321 Notes Workers who provide personal care to residents of medical and health care facilities that have permanent medical or nursing supervision (such as in hospitals and nursing care homes), and therefore work under the direct supervision of health professionals or associate professionals, are classified in Unit Group 5321: Health Care Assistants. Workers who provide personal care in independent residential settings (including retirement communities with minimal or no on-site medical or nursing supervision) are classified in Unit Group 5322: Home-based Personal Care Workers. Home birth assistants, who provide emotional support and general care and advice to women and families during pregnancy and labour, but not delivery care to reduce health risks, are included here. Care workers who provide care and supervision for children in residential homes and care centres are classified in Unit Group 5311: Child Care Workers.
A few tasks are affected, but the heart of the job isn't. It ranks 194 of 427 for holding up against AI.
Also known as
- home care aide
Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.
against AI Minimal Exposure
AI could take on 24.7 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 24.7 = 75.3
That's the whole sum, and you can check it against the ILO's study.
out of 100
From O*NET, averaged across 5 US jobs
and cramped
finger skill 32.4 · hand skill 29.2 · cramped spaces 30.4 · 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 54.5 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 60, while the average is 24.7. 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.
- 60
Scheduling and accompanying clients for appointments with medical doctors and other health professionals or performing other errands.
Medium - 46.5
Maintaining records of client care, changes in condition and responses to care and treatment, and reporting concerns or providing referrals to a health or social services professional
Low - 26.5
Providing psychological support to clients such as through conversation or reading aloud
Low - 25.5
Providing clients and families with emotional support and information and advice on topics such as nutrition, hygiene, exercise, caring for infants or adapting to disability or illness
Low - 20.8
Planning, purchasing, preparing, or serving meals to meet nutritional requirements and prescribed diets
Very Low - 14.5
Providing support to parents and care for newborns during the postpartum period
Very Low - 10.5
Maintaining clients' environmental hygiene standards, such as changing bed linen, washing clothes and dishes, and cleaning living quarters
Very Low - 10.1
Assisting clients with personal and therapeutic care needs such as personal hygiene, feeding, dressing, physical mobility and exercise, communication, taking oral medications and changing dressings, usually as per care plans established by a health professional
Very Low - 7.5
Positioning and lifting clients with physical mobility challenges, and helping transport them in wheelchairs and motor vehicles
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.
One Australian job matches this one closely, so this is about as reliable as it gets here.
- AI helps you
- 47
- AI does it for you
- 21
Helping wins by 26 points.
estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 4231
Compared with similar jobs
There are 39 jobs in the “Service and sales workers” group, averaging 74.4. This one is above that.
- Prison guards 86.2
- Police officers 86.1
- Pet groomers and animal care workers 85.9
- Health care assistants 85.9
- Personal care workers in health servi… 85
- Undertakers and embalmers 83.3
- Hairdressers 82.7
- Beauticians and related workers 81.7
- Fire-fighters 81.7
- Cooks 81.6
- Child care workers 80.9
- Protective services workers not elsew… 80.3
- Domestic housekeepers 80.1
- Security guards 79.8
- Driving instructors 79.5
- Personal services workers not elsewhe… 78.7
- Travel attendants and travel stewards 78.5
- Companions and valets 78.2
- Cleaning and housekeeping supervisors… 78
- Street food salespersons 77.5
- Food service counter attendants 76.2
- Service station attendants 75.9
- Teachers' aides 75.9
- Fashion and other models 75.2
- Transport conductors 75.1
- Bartenders 73.9
- Building caretakers 73.4
- Waiters 71.9
A closer look
There's a written profile for this job, with notes on what changes and what stays human.