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Elementary occupations · code 9212

Livestock farm labourers

A sensor can tell you a cow is unwell. Someone still has to go and see to her.

AI barely touches any of the ten tasks, from herding and checking on animals to stacking feed and digging ditches.

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

Livestock farm labourers perform simple and routine tasks in the farm production of animals, including poultry and insects. Tasks include - (a) digging and shovelling to clear ditches or for other purposes; (b) loading and unloading supplies, produce and other materials; (c) feeding, watering and cleaning animals and keeping their quarters clean; (d) monitoring livestock and reporting on their condition; (e) assisting with maintaining the health and welfare of livestock; (f) assisting with herding, droving and separating livestock for milking, shearing, transportation or slaughter, and between pastures; (g) collecting eggs and placing in incubators; (h) raking, pitching, stacking and storing hay, straw and other types of animal feed and bedding; (i) grading, sorting and packing produce into containers; (j) performing minor repairs on fixtures, buildings, equipment and fences. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Livestock farm labourer Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Drover - 6121 - Shepherd - 6121 - Skilled farm worker (livestock) - 6121 - Firewood collector - 9624 - Water collector - 9624

  • groom
  • equine worker
  • livestock worker
  • catcher

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

88 / 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

31 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 10 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 11.9 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 11.9 = 88.1.

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.

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

Pinch of salt: this number is probably too rosy

It only asks what AI software could do, and this job is 68 out of 100 hands-on. A chatbot can't do that part. A robot might, one day, and nobody measures how close that is.

Man v Bot · compare

Who holds up better?

Livestock farm labourers 88

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.

  • Health and breeding records.
  • Monitoring animals with collars and cameras.
  • Planning feed and cleaning schedules.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Handling animals calmly and safely.
  • Noticing when an animal isn't right.
  • Hard physical work in all weathers.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Working with milking robots and automated feeders.
  • Welfare audits and traceability records.
  • Lower-emission farming practices.

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.

– could do without you

We don't have a measure of how much of this job AI could take over.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Higher

68 how hands-on

Most of this job needs hands, a body or turning up. That's robot territory, and nobody measures how far robots have got well enough to give you a number. We won't make one up.

So could a robot do the physical part?

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.

Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 35 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

68 How
hands-on
35 How fiddly
and cramped

Kind of hands-on work Hands-on, less fiddly work

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 42.9 · hand skill 44.6 · cramped spaces 17.3 · averaged · rule: hands-on 50+ · fiddly under 39.4

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 15, against an average of 12. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 15

    Monitoring livestock and reporting on their condition

    Very Low
  2. 15

    Assisting with herding, droving and separating livestock for milking, shearing, transportation or slaughter and between pastures

    Very Low
  3. 15

    Grading, sorting, packing produce into containers

    Very Low
  4. 14

    Assisting with maintaining the health and welfare of livestock

    Very Low
  5. 12

    Performing minor repairs on fixtures, buildings, equipment and fences.

    Very Low
  6. 12

    Feeding, watering and cleaning animals and keeping their quarters clean

    Very Low
  7. 11

    Loading and unloading supplies, produce and other materials

    Very Low
  8. 10

    Collecting eggs and placing in incubators

    Very Low
  9. 10

    Raking, pitching, stacking and storing hay, straw and other types of animal feed and bedding

    Very Low
  10. 7

    Digging and shovelling to clear ditches or for other purposes

    Very Low

10 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

So, should livestock farm workers be worried?

Short answer: not really. Put the kettle on.

No. Every task rates Very Low, from herding to feeding and cleaning. Farms use more sensors, milking robots and software, but animals need people who can handle them.

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 →