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Craft and related trades workers · code 7323

Print finishing and binding workers

Print finishing and binding workers bind books and other publications, and finish printed products by hand or machine. Tasks include - (a) setting up and supervising the operation of automatic binding and finishing equipment; (b) binding full, half and limp-bound books, and repairing bindings; (c) folding, collating and sewing signatures by machine and hand; (d) operating paper guillotines for pre-press and post-press paper cutting and trimming, and programming electronically operated units; (e) operating systems to insert printed material into newspapers, magazines and envelopes; (f) embellishing printed products automatically and manually; (g) operating photographic and electronic reproduction devices. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Book binder - Collator operator - Cutter operator - Foil stamp operator - Folder operator - Gatherer operator - Multibinder operator - Perfect binder operator - Saddle stitch operator - Small machine bindery worker

None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count. It ranks 170 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • bindery operator
  • book restorer
  • print folding operator
  • book-sewing machine operator

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

78
Holds up
against AI Not Exposed

AI could take on 22 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 22 = 78

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

66.9
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, matched to one US job

42.6
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 46.4 · hand skill 44.6 · cramped spaces 36.8 · averaged

Kind of hands-on work · hands-on 50+ · fiddly 39.4+ Hands-on, fiddly work in tight spaces

More fine handwork, and more time in cramped or awkward spots, than a typical hands-on job. That is exactly what machines find hardest: they do best in tidy, predictable places.

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 66.9 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 36.5, while the average is 22. 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. 36.5

    Operating photographic and electronic reproduction devices.

    Low
  2. 28.5

    Setting up and supervising the operation of automatic binding and finishing equipment

    Low
  3. 26.5

    Embellishing printed products automatically and manually

    Low
  4. 18.5

    Operating systems to insert printed material into newspapers, magazines and envelopes

    Very Low
  5. 17.5

    Operating paper guillotines for pre-press and post-press paper cutting and trimming, and programming electronically operated units

    Very Low
  6. 14

    Folding, collating and sewing signatures by machine and hand

    Very Low
  7. 12.5

    Binding full, half and limp-bound books, and repairing bindings

    Very Low

7 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
54.5
AI does it for you
27

Helping wins by 27.5 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 3921, 8995

Compared with similar jobs

There are 65 jobs in the “Craft and related trades workers” group, averaging 83.6. This one is below that.