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Plant and machine operators, and assemblers · code 8156

Shoemaking and related machine operators

Shoemaking and related machine operators monitor and operate machines which produce and repair standard or special footwear, handbags and other accessories, mainly made of leather. Tasks include - (a) operating and monitoring machines which mark patterns and cut shoe parts; (b) operating and monitoring machines which sew shoe parts together, or edge, polish, or apply ornaments and perform finishing tasks; (c) operating and monitoring machines which produce luggage, handbags, belts and other accessories, as well as other items such as saddles, collars or harnesses. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Machine operator (footwear production) Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Handicraft worker (leather) - 7318 - Cobbler - 7536

None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count. It ranks 85 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • leather goods machine operator
  • automated cutting machine operator
  • footwear production machine operator
  • pre-stitching 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.

83.7
Holds up
against AI Not Exposed

AI could take on 16.3 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 16.3 = 83.7

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

60.9
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, matched to one US job

39.2
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 46.4 · hand skill 42.9 · cramped spaces 28.2 · 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 60.9 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 18, while the average is 16.3. 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. 18

    Operating and monitoring machines which produce luggage, handbags, belts and other accessories, as well as other items such as saddles, collars or harnesses.

    Very Low
  2. 17

    Operating and monitoring machines which mark patterns and cut shoe parts

    Very Low
  3. 13.8

    Operating and monitoring machines which sew shoe parts together, or edge, polish, or apply ornaments and perform finishing tasks

    Very Low

3 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
56
AI does it for you
24

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 7117

Compared with similar jobs

There are 39 jobs in the “Plant and machine operators, and assemblers” group, averaging 80.1. This one is above that.