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Plant and machine operators, and assemblers · code 8341

Mobile farm and forestry plant operators

Mobile farm and forestry plant operators drive, tend, operate and monitor one or more types of special-purpose motorized mobile machinery or equipment used in agricultural, horticultural and forestry operations. Tasks include - (a) driving and tending tractor-drawn or self-propelled special-purpose farm machinery to plough land and sow, fertilize, cultivate and harvest crops; (b) driving and tending tractor-drawn or self-propelled special-purpose forestry machinery to clear land, plant, harvest and carry trees and timber or perform other forestry operations; (c) preparing and positioning plant for operation; (d) adjusting speed, height and depth of implements; (e) operating plant to hold, lift and cut trees; (f) operating attachments to lift, swing, release and sort trees and logs, and operating auxiliary plant such as chipping machines and log splitting machines; (g) feeding felled trees into processors to strip limbs and cut into logs and loading logs onto stockpiles and into trucks; (h) servicing machinery and performing minor repairs. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Harvester operator - Logging plant operator - Timber carrier driver - Tractor driver - Tree faller operator Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Bulldozer operator - 8342

None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count. It ranks 36 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • forestry equipment operator
  • land-based machinery operator
  • land-based machinery supervisor

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

87.7
Holds up
against AI Not Exposed

AI could take on 12.3 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 12.3 = 87.7

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

78.2
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, averaged across 2 US jobs

34.2
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 38.4 · hand skill 43.8 · cramped spaces 20.3 · 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 78.2 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 15, while the average is 12.3. 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. 15

    Driving and tending tractor-drawn or self-propelled special-purpose forestry machinery to clear land, plant, harvest and carry trees and timber or perform other forestry operations

    Very Low
  2. 15

    Servicing machinery and performing minor repairs.

    Very Low
  3. 13.8

    Preparing and positioning plant for operation

    Very Low
  4. 13

    Adjusting speed, height and depth of implements

    Very Low
  5. 13

    Operating attachments to lift, swing, release and sort trees and logs, and operating auxiliary plant such as chipping machines and log splitting machines

    Very Low
  6. 11.3

    Feeding felled trees into processors to strip limbs and cut into logs and loading logs onto stockpiles and into trucks

    Very Low
  7. 10

    Driving and tending tractor-drawn or self-propelled special-purpose farm machinery to plough land and sow, fertilize, cultivate and harvest crops

    Very Low
  8. 7.3

    Operating plant to hold, lift and cut trees

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

AI helps you
54
AI does it for you
25

Helping wins by 29 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 7211

Compared with similar jobs

There are 39 jobs in the “Plant and machine operators, and assemblers” group, averaging 79.9. This one is above that.