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Plant and machine operators, and assemblers · code 8153

Sewing machine operators

Sewing machine operators monitor and operate sewing machines to make, repair, darn and renovate textile, fur, synthetic or leather garments, or embroider ornamental designs on garments or other materials. They operate buttonhole making and eyelet holing machines to cut holes, stitch around holes, stitch buttons and fix eyelets to garments. Tasks include - (a) operating or tending sewing machines to perform garment sewing operations such as joining, reinforcing, seaming or decorating garments or garment parts; (b) attaching buttons, hooks, zippers, fasteners or other accessories to fabric, using feeding hoppers or clamp holders; (c) tending semiautomatic sewing machines with multiple-sewing heads controlled by pattern chains that embroider various designs on garments; (d) operating machines such as single or double needle sergers and flat-bed felling machines to automatically join, reinforce or decorate material or articles; (e) operating fur sewing machines to join fur pelt strips to required size and shape and join pelts into garment sections or shells; (f) operating stitching machines to sew leather parts together for leather garments, handbags, gloves or similar items; (g) monitoring machine operations to detect problems such as defective stitching, breaks in thread or machine malfunctions; (h) performing equipment maintenance tasks such as replacing needles. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Embroidery machine operator - Sewing machine operator Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Textiles handicraft worker - 7318 - Furrier - 7531 - Tailor - 7531 - Embroiderer - 7533 - Sewer - 7533

None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count. It ranks 74 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • 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.

85.2
Holds up
against AI Not Exposed

AI could take on 14.8 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 14.8 = 85.2

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

51.1
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, matched to one US job

35.6
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 46.4 · hand skill 46.4 · cramped spaces 14 · 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 51.1 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 21.8, while the average is 14.8. 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. 21.8

    Monitoring machine operation to detect problems such as defective stitching, breaks in thread, or machine malfunctions

    Very Low
  2. 16.5

    Operating machines, such as single or double needle sergers and flat-bed felling machines to automatically join, reinforce, or decorate material or articles

    Very Low
  3. 15.5

    Operating or tending sewing machines to perform garment sewing operations, such as joining, reinforcing, seaming or decorating garments or garment parts

    Very Low
  4. 14.3

    Tending semiautomatic sewing machines with multiple-sewing heads controlled by pattern chain that embroiders various designs on garments

    Very Low
  5. 13.5

    Performing equipment maintenance tasks such as replacing needles.

    Very Low
  6. 12.5

    Operating stitching machines to sew leather parts together for leather garments, handbags , gloves or similar items

    Very Low
  7. 12.3

    Attaching buttons, hooks, zippers, fasteners or other accessories to fabric, using feeding hoppers or clamp holders

    Very Low
  8. 12

    Operating fur sewing machines to join fur pelt strips to required size and shape and join pelts into garment sections or shells

    Very Low

8 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
51
AI does it for you
18

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 7116

Compared with similar jobs

There are 39 jobs in the “Plant and machine operators, and assemblers” group, averaging 80. This one is above that.