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Craft and related trades workers · code 7533

Sewing, embroidery and related workers

AI can design the embroidery pattern. Hand-finishing the garment is still skilled work.

AI barely touches any of the twelve tasks, from embroidering designs and matching thread to patching, darning and repairing clothes.

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

Sewing, embroidery and related workers sew together, repair, renovate and decorate garments, gloves and other products of textile, fur, light leather and other materials and fabricate tents, sails, awnings and tarpaulins. They work mainly by hand, using a needle and thread, but may perform some tasks using a sewing machine. Tasks include - (a) repairing defective or damaged portions of cloths or garments by hand, using matching thread and needle; (b) removing stitches from garments to be altered, using rippers or razor blades; (c) selecting thread according to specifications or colour of parts, or dyeing thread to match colour and shade of cloth to be darned; (d) patching holes, sewing tears and ripped seams, or darning defects in items, using needle and thread; (e) pulling knots to the wrong sides of garments, using hooks; (f) trimming ends with scissors to make mended portions look uniform with the pattern of cloth; (g) sewing ornamental designs by hand over stamped, printed or stencilled patterns on fabric, using needle and coloured thread; (h) embroidering ornamental designs on cloth by hand or machine, using needle and coloured thread; (i) softening leather or shoe material with water to prepare it for sewing; (j) sewing or gluing decorative trimmings to articles such as hats, caps or other millinery; (k) hand-sewing umbrella covers to frames, tacking cover to ribs along seams, sewing corners to tips of ribs and sewing ties to outside of cover to hold umbrella when folded; (l) fabricating and assembling thick cloth, canvas and similar materials into sails, awning, tarpaulins and tents. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Embroiderer - Sewer - Umbrella maker Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Textiles handicraft worker - 7318 - Dressmaker - 7531 - Sewing machine operator - 8153

  • embroiderer
  • doll maker
  • sewing machinist
  • made-up textile articles manufacturer
  • glove maker

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

88 / 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

35 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 12 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 12.2 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 12.2 = 87.8.

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 60 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?

Sewing, embroidery and related workers 88

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.

  • Turning designs into files for embroidery machines.
  • Orders, quotes and stock records.
  • Pattern layouts and cutting plans.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Hand-finishing and repairs.
  • Matching thread, colour and fabric by eye.
  • Custom and one-off pieces.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Repair and alteration work as people keep clothes longer.
  • Running computerised embroidery machines.
  • Made-to-order and personalised products.

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

23 could do without you

It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 63 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Higher

60 how hands-on

Most of this job needs hands, a body or turning up. That's robot territory, and nobody measures how far robots have got well enough to give you a number. We won't make one up.

So could a robot do the physical part?

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.

Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 41 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

60 How
hands-on
41 How fiddly
and cramped

Kind of hands-on work Hands-on, fiddly work in tight spaces

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 3 US jobs .

finger skill 49.4 · hand skill 48.2 · cramped spaces 24.5 · averaged · rule: hands-on 50+ · fiddly 39.4+

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 14, against an average of 12. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 14

    Embroidering ornamental designs on cloth by hand or machine using needle and coloured threads

    Very Low
  2. 14

    Selecting thread according to specifications or colour of parts or dyeing thread to match colour and shade of cloth to be darned

    Very Low
  3. 14

    Trimming ends with scissors to make mended portion look uniform with pattern of cloth

    Very Low
  4. 14

    Sewing ornamental designs by hand over stamped, printed or stencilled patterns on fabric using needle and coloured thread

    Very Low
  5. 14

    Sewing or gluing decorative trimmings to articles, such as hats, caps or millinery

    Very Low
  6. 14

    Hand-sewing umbrella covers to frames, tacking cover to ribs along seams, sewing corners to tip of rib and sewing ties to outside of cover to hold umbrella when folded

    Very Low
  7. 13

    Pulling knots to the wrong sides of garments, using hooks

    Very Low
  8. 12

    Fabricating and assembling thick cloth, canvas and similar materials into sails, awning, tarpaulins and tents.

    Very Low
  9. 12

    Softening leather or shoe material with water to prepare it for sewing

    Very Low
  10. 10

    Removing stitches from garments to be altered, using rippers or razor blades

    Very Low
  11. 10

    Repairing defective or damaged portion of cloth or garment by hand, using matching thread and needle

    Very Low
  12. 9

    Patching holes, sewing tears and ripped seams, or darning defects in items, using needles and thread

    Very Low

12 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
63
AI does it for you
23

Sidekick wins, by 40 points.

How good a match is this?

One Australian job matches, but only partly: not everyone in it does this job. 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 3931

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?

Out of every 100 conversations

11
89

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. This job makes up 0.21% of the conversations.

The data is sorted by US job, and this one matches 2 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 sewing and embroidery workers be worried?

Short answer: not really. Put the kettle on.

Not about AI. Every task rates Very Low, from embroidery to repairs. Computerised machines already do much of the embroidery; alterations, repairs and hand finishing remain skilled manual work.

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 65 jobs in the “Craft and related trades workers” family, averaging 83. This one is above the family average.

Pit this against any other job →