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Elementary occupations · code 9216

Fishery and aquaculture labourers

AI can watch the fish farm through a camera. Mooring the boat is still rope and muscle.

AI barely touches any of the seven tasks, from feeding farmed fish and shellfish to handling mooring lines and gathering seaweed.

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

Fishery and aquaculture labourers perform simple and routine tasks to cultivate, catch and harvest fish and seafood in aquaculture and in inland, coastal and deep sea fishing operations. Tasks include - (a) cleaning the sea-bed and feeding fish and molluscs that are being cultivated; (b) gathering seaweed, sea mosses, clams and other molluscs; (c) preparing nets, lines and other fishing tackle and other deck equipment; (d) operating fishing gear to catch fish and other marine life; (e) cleaning, sorting and packing fish and seafood in ice and salt, and stowing catch in hold; (f) cleaning deck surfaces and fish hold; (g) handling mooring lines during docking. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Aquaculture labourer - Fishery labourer Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Fish farmer - 6221 - Coastal fishery skipper - 6222 - Fisher (coastal waters) - 6222 - Fisher (inland waters) - 6222 - Deep sea fisher - 6223

  • water-based aquaculture worker
  • aquaculture harvesting worker
  • aquaculture cage mooring worker
  • on foot aquatic resources collector

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

89 / 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

22 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 11.1 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 11.1 = 88.9.

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 70 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?

Fishery and aquaculture labourers 89

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.

  • Monitoring fish health and feeding with cameras.
  • Catch records and traceability paperwork.
  • Weather and sea-condition forecasts.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Working safely on deck in rough conditions.
  • Handling nets, lines and live fish.
  • Noticing problems with stock or gear first-hand.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Running automated feeding systems.
  • Traceability and sustainability reporting.
  • Seaweed and shellfish farming.

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

70 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 38 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

70 How
hands-on
38 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, averaged across 2 US jobs .

finger skill 42.9 · hand skill 42.9 · cramped spaces 27.7 · 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 11. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 15

    Handling mooring lines during docking.

    Very Low
  2. 13

    Cleaning the sea-bed and feeding fish and molluscs that are being cultivated

    Very Low
  3. 13

    Operating fishing gear to catch fish and other marine life

    Very Low
  4. 12

    Preparing nets, lines and other fishing tackle and other deck equipment

    Very Low
  5. 12

    Cleaning, sorting and packing fish and seafood in ice and salt, and stowing catch in hold

    Very Low
  6. 8

    Cleaning deck surfaces and fish hold

    Very Low
  7. 6

    Gathering seaweed, sea mosses, clams and other molluscs

    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

So, should fishery and aquaculture workers be worried?

Short answer: not really. Put the kettle on.

No. Every task rates Very Low, from handling mooring lines to cleaning and packing the catch. Fish farms use more cameras and automated feeding, which changes some jobs, but work at sea stays physical.

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 →