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Craft and related trades workers · code 7523

Woodworking-machine tool setters and operators

Woodworking machine tool setters and operators set-up, operate and monitor automatic or semi-automatic woodworking machines such as precision sawing, shaping, planing, boring, turning and woodcarving machines to fabricate or repair wooden parts for furniture, fixtures and other wooden products. Tasks include - (a) setting up, programming, operating and monitoring several types of woodworking machines for sawing, shaping, boring, drilling, planing, pressing, turning, sanding or carving to fabricate or repair wooden parts for furniture, fixtures and other wooden products; (b) operating preset special-purpose woodworking machines to fabricate wooden products such as coat hangers, mop handles, clothespins and other products; (c) selecting knives, saws, blades, cutter heads, cams, bits or belts according to work piece, machine functions and product specifications; (d) installing and adjusting blades, cutter heads, boring-bits and sanding-belts, and using hand tools and rules; (e) setting and adjusting various kinds of woodworking machines for operation by others; (f) reading and interpreting specifications or following verbal instructions. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Carving machine operator (wood) - Furniture production machine operator - Precision woodworking sawyer - Wood products machine operator - Wood turner - Woodworking lathe operator - Woodworking machine setter - Woodworking machine setter-operator - Woodworking machine set-up operator Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Wood and related products assemblers - 8219

None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count. It ranks 164 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • nailing machine operator
  • wood pallet maker
  • wood boring machine operator
  • woodturner
  • wooden furniture machine operator
  • wood sander

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

78.4
Holds up
against AI Not Exposed

AI could take on 21.6 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 21.6 = 78.4

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

60.6
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, matched to one US job

47.5
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 46.4 · hand skill 46.4 · cramped spaces 49.8 · 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 60.6 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 54, while the average is 21.6. 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. 54

    Reading and interpreting specifications or following verbal instructions.

    Medium
  2. 16.5

    Setting and adjusting various kinds of woodworking machines for operation by others

    Very Low
  3. 15.3

    Selecting knives, saws, blades, cutter heads, cams, bits or belts according to work piece, machine functions and product specifications

    Very Low
  4. 15

    Setting-up, programming, operating and monitoring several types of woodworking machines for sawing, shaping, boring, drilling, planing, pressing, turning, sanding or carving to fabricate or repair wooden parts for furniture, fixtures and other wooden products

    Very Low
  5. 15

    Installing and adjusting blades, cutter heads, boring-bits and sanding-belts, and using hand tools and rules

    Very Low
  6. 14

    Operating preset special-purpose woodworking machines to fabricate wooden products such as coat hangers, mop handles, clothes pins and other products

    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 0.7-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, but only partly: not everyone in it does this job. Treat the numbers as a rough guide.

AI helps you
58
AI does it for you
26

Helping wins by 32 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 3942

Compared with similar jobs

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