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Service and sales workers · code 5329

Personal care workers in health services not elsewhere classified

Software can track the instruments. Moving a patient safely is still hands-on.

AI barely touches any of the six tasks, including preparing patients, setting up instruments and sterilising equipment.

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

This unit group covers providers of routine health and personal care support services not classified elsewhere in Minor Group 532: Personal Care Workers in Health Services. For instance, the group includes occupations such as dental aid, sterilization aid, hospital orderly, medical imaging assistant, and pharmacy aid. In such cases tasks would include - (a) cleaning and sterilizing surgical, dental and pharmaceutical instruments, bottles, beakers and other equipment; (b) labelling drugs, chemicals and other pharmaceutical preparations and replenishing stock on shelves; (c) lifting, turning and moving patients and transporting them in wheelchairs or on moveable beds; (d) preparing patients for examination or treatment; (e) setting up instrument trays, preparing materials, and assisting dentists or radiographers during procedures; (f) exposing diagnostic X-rays. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Dental aide - First aid attendant - Hospital orderly - Medical imaging assistant - Pharmacy aide - Phlebotomist - Sterilization aide Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Pharmaceutical assistant - 3213 - Dental technician - 3214 - Dental assistant - 3251

  • hospital porter
  • sterile services technician
  • phlebotomist

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

85 / 100

Strongly holds up against AI

Most of this job still needs an actual human. AI would mostly be making the tea.

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: Not Exposed

76 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 6 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 15 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 15 = 85.

That's the whole sum. No black box, no secret sauce: you can check it against the ILO's study. ILO group “Not Exposed”: None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count.

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

Pinch of salt: this number is probably too rosy

It only asks what AI software could do, and this job is 54 out of 100 hands-on. A chatbot can't do that part. A robot might, one day, and nobody measures how close that is.

Man v Bot · compare

Who holds up better?

Personal care workers in health services not elsewhere classified 85

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 labelling and inventory tracking.
  • Tracking instruments through sterilisation.
  • Scheduling porter jobs by app.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Lifting and moving patients safely.
  • Preparing and reassuring patients.
  • Handling instruments and samples carefully.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Working with automated stock and tracking systems.
  • Robots delivering supplies around hospitals.
  • Stricter infection control.

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: Low

30 could do without you

It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 59 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Some

54 how hands-on

A fair part of this job is hands-on, so robots would be needed for that part, not just software.

So could a robot do the physical part?

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.

Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 38 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

54 How
hands-on
38 How fiddly
and cramped

Kind of hands-on work Hands-on, helping and caring for others

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 9 US jobs , so treat it as rough.

finger skill 41.2 · hand skill 38.3 · cramped spaces 33.9 · averaged · rule: hands-on 50+ · caring 4+ of 7

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 21, against an average of 15. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 21

    Labelling drugs, chemicals and other pharmaceutical preparations and replenishing stock on shelves

    Very Low
  2. 14

    Preparing patients for examination or treatment

    Very Low
  3. 14

    Exposing diagnostic X-rays.

    Very Low
  4. 14

    Lifting, turning and moving patients and transporting them in wheelchairs or on moveable beds

    Very Low
  5. 14

    Setting up instrument trays, preparing materials, and assisting dentists or radiographers during procedures

    Very Low
  6. 13

    Cleaning and sterilizing surgical, dental and pharmaceutical instruments, bottles, beakers and other equipment

    Very 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 0.8-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
59
AI does it for you
30

Sidekick wins, by 29 points.

How good a match is this?

6 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 3112, 4232, 4233, 4518, 7114, 7119

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 under 0.01% 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

41
59

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.

The data is sorted by US job, and this one matches 3 of them. We've combined them, counting each by how often it comes up in the conversations, so the busiest one counts most.

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 porters, phlebotomists and sterile services staff be worried?

Short answer: not really. Put the kettle on.

No. Every task rates Very Low; the most exposed is labelling drugs and restocking shelves. Tracking systems and automated stock rooms help, but preparing patients, moving them and sterilising instruments need people.

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

None of the new jobs we've written up start from here yet. Could be you're the first. See the jobs AI is creating →

How are the neighbours doing?

There are 39 jobs in the “Service and sales workers” family, averaging 74. This one is above the family average.

Pit this against any other job →