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Craft and related trades workers · code 7516

Tobacco preparers and tobacco products makers

Tobacco preparers and tobacco products makers prepare tobacco leaves and make various tobacco products. Tasks include - (a) grading cured tobacco leaves by type, quality and locality where grown; (b) mixing tobacco leaves according to formula to obtain a blend of distinct flavour; (c) tending vacuum containers which moisten tobacco for further processing; (d) removing midribs and stalks from tobacco leaves and shredding tobacco; (e) making cigars, cigarettes, snuff and other tobacco products by hand or with simple machines. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Cigarette maker - Cigar maker - Tobacco grader Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Cigarette production machine operator - 8160 - Cigar production machine operator - 8160

None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count. It ranks 67 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • curing room worker
  • leaf tier
  • leaf sorter

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

85.6
Holds up
against AI Not Exposed

AI could take on 14.4 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 14.4 = 85.6

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

65.6
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, averaged across 6 US jobs

38.5
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 45.2 · hand skill 46.4 · cramped spaces 23.9 · averaged

Kind of hands-on work · hands-on 50+ · fiddly under 39.4 Hands-on, less fiddly work

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.

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 65.6 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 21.5, while the average is 14.4. 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. 21.5

    Grading cured tobacco leaves by type, quality and locality where grown

    Very Low
  2. 17.5

    Mixing tobacco leaves according to formula to obtain a blend of distinct flavour

    Very Low
  3. 15

    Tending vacuum container which moistens tobacco for further processing

    Very Low
  4. 10.3

    Making cigars, cigarettes, snuff and other tobacco products by hand or with simple machines.

    Very Low
  5. 7.5

    Removing midribs and stalks from tobacco leaves and shredding tobacco

    Very 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 0.7-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
54
AI does it for you
21

Helping wins by 33 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 8311

Compared with similar jobs

There are 65 jobs in the “Craft and related trades workers” group, averaging 83.4. This one is above that.