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Plant and machine operators, and assemblers · code 8343

Crane, hoist and related plant operators

Crane, hoist and related plant operators monitor and operate stationary and mobile cranes and other hoisting equipment. Tasks include - (a) operating and monitoring stationary or mobile cranes by raising and lowering jibs and booms to lift, move, position or place equipment and materials; (b) operating and monitoring equipment for hoisting, lowering or raising workers and materials on construction sites or in mines; (c) operating and monitoring ski-lifts and similar equipment; (d) operating and monitoring machinery used to haul ferries or barges with goods, passengers and vehicles across short stretches of water; (e) operating and monitoring machinery to open and close bridges for the passage of road and water traffic; (f) operating and monitoring cranes equipped with dredging attachments to dredge waterways and other areas; (g) operating cranes mounted on boats or barges to lift, move and place equipment and materials. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Cable car operator - Chair-lift operator - Crane operator - Funicular driver - Hoist operator - Mine cage operator - Ski-lift operator

None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count. It ranks 107 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • tower crane operator
  • container crane operator
  • automated cable vehicle controller
  • production plant crane operator
  • mobile crane operator

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

82.5
Holds up
against AI Not Exposed

AI could take on 17.5 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 17.5 = 82.5

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

62.4
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, averaged across 6 US jobs

32.3
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 36.1 · hand skill 36.3 · cramped spaces 24.7 · 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 62.4 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 22.5, while the average is 17.5. 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. 22.5

    Operating and monitoring ski-lifts and similar equipment

    Very Low
  2. 21

    Operating and monitoring machinery to open and close bridge for the passage of road and water traffic

    Very Low
  3. 17.8

    Operating and monitoring machinery used to haul ferry or barge with goods, passengers and vehicles across short stretches of water

    Very Low
  4. 15.8

    Operating and monitoring cranes equipped with dredging attachments to dredge waterways and other areas

    Very Low
  5. 15.6

    Operating and monitoring stationary or mobile cranes by raising and lowering jibs and booms, to lift, move, position or place equipment and materials

    Very Low
  6. 15

    Operating and monitoring equipment for hoisting, lowering or raising workers and materials on construction sites or in mines

    Very Low
  7. 15

    Operating cranes mounted on boats or barges to lift, move and place equipment and materials.

    Very Low

7 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.

3 Australian jobs match this one, and we've simply averaged them. Treat the numbers as a rough guide.

AI helps you
53.7
AI does it for you
23

Helping wins by 30.7 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 7121, 7129, 7219

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.