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Elementary occupations · code 9111

Domestic cleaners and helpers

AI can write the shopping list. It won't clean the bathroom.

Buying food and household supplies is mostly out of AI's reach. It barely touches six of the seven tasks, including cleaning windows, washing up and helping with meals.

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

Domestic cleaners and helpers sweep, vacuum clean, wash and polish, take care of household linen, purchase household supplies, prepare food, serve meals and perform various other domestic duties. Tasks include - (a) sweeping, vacuum cleaning, polishing and washing floors and furniture, or washing windows and other fixtures; (b) washing, ironing and mending linen and other textiles; (c) washing dishes; (d) helping with preparation, cooking and serving of meals and refreshments; (e) purchasing food and various other household supplies; (f) cleaning, disinfecting and deodorizing kitchens, bathrooms and toilets; (g) cleaning windows and other glass surfaces. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Charworker (domestic) - Domestic cleaner - Domestic helper Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Domestic housekeeper - 5152 - Hotel cleaner - 9112 - Hand launderer - 9121 - Street sweeper - 9613

  • domestic cleaner

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

86 / 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

66 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 7 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 14.3 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 14.3 = 85.7.

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.

This job rates 43.8 out of 100 for how hands-on it is. The score above only looks at AI tools, not robots, but for work this far from the physical that matters less.

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use

Man v Bot · compare

Who holds up better?

Domestic cleaners and helpers 86

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.

  • Shopping lists and online orders.
  • Bookings and payments through apps.
  • Scheduling regular visits.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Cleaning a whole home to a standard.
  • Being trusted in someone's house.
  • The jobs robots can't do: bathrooms, kitchens, clutter.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Looking after robot vacuums and smart home devices.
  • Work found through booking platforms.
  • Supporting older people living at home.

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

10 could do without you

It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 42 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Some

44 how hands-on

A fair part of this job is hands-on, so robots would be needed for that part, not just software.

So could a robot do the physical part?

Less than half of this job is hands-on. Robots still matter, but for a smaller part of the work, so we don't sort it any further.

Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 22 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

44 How
hands-on
22 How fiddly
and cramped

Kind of hands-on work Less than half hands-on

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, matched to one US job .

finger skill 30.3 · hand skill 30.3 · cramped spaces 6.5 · averaged · rule: hands-on under 50

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

  1. 30

    Purchasing food and various other household supplies

    Low
  2. 22

    Helping with preparation, cooking and serving of meals and refreshments

    Very Low
  3. 14

    Washing, ironing and mending linen and other textiles

    Very Low
  4. 10

    Cleaning, disinfecting and deodorising kitchens, bathrooms and toilets

    Very Low
  5. 9

    Sweeping, vacuum cleaning, polishing and washing floors and furniture, or washing windows and other fixtures

    Very Low
  6. 9

    Cleaning windows and other glass surfaces.

    Very Low
  7. 7

    Washing dishes

    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 0.8-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
42
AI does it for you
10

Sidekick wins, by 32 points.

How good a match is this?

One Australian job matches this one closely, so this is about as reliable as it gets here.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.8-observed-use matched to Australian jobs 8113

So, should domestic cleaners be worried?

Short answer: not really. Put the kettle on.

No. The most exposed task is buying household supplies, rated Low; cleaning, washing and cooking all rate Very Low. Robot vacuums handle some floors, but a whole house still needs a person.

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 33 jobs in the “Elementary occupations” family, averaging 85. This one is above the family average.

Pit this against any other job →