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Elementary occupations · code 9311

Mining and quarrying labourers

Mining and quarrying labourers perform routine tasks in mining and quarrying operations. Tasks include - (a) assisting miners and quarriers in maintaining machinery, equipment, and mine and quarry installations; (b) assembling and dismantling mining equipment; (c) removing tunnel supports from disused workings in mines and quarries; (d) removing dangerous projections from mine and quarry workings; (e) removing waste and serviceable materials and equipment from work areas after extraction activities have been completed, and clearing rock and mineral spills; (f) cleaning machinery, equipment, tools, roadways and haulage tracks; (g) sorting, loading, unloading, stacking and storing tools, materials and supplies used by other mine workers. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Mining labourer - Quarry labourer Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Driller (mining) - 8111 - Miner - 8111 - Mining plant operator - 8111 - Quarrier - 8111 - Driller (oil or gas well) - 8113 - Drilling plant operator - 8113

None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count. It ranks 17 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • mining assistant

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

89.1
Holds up
against AI Not Exposed

AI could take on 10.9 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 10.9 = 89.1

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

90.9
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, matched to one US job

50.8
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 46.4 · hand skill 46.4 · cramped spaces 59.5 · averaged

Kind of hands-on work · hands-on 50+ · caring 4+ of 7 Hands-on, helping and caring for others

Physical work where helping and caring for people is a big part of the job. For care work, whether a machine could do the movements is only half the question. The other half is whether anyone wants one to. The US data counts helping workmates too, so a few trades end up here.

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 90.9 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 13.8, while the average is 10.9. 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. 13.8

    Assisting miners and quarriers in maintaining machinery, equipment, and mine and quarry installations

    Very Low
  2. 12.5

    Assembling and dismantling mining equipment

    Very Low
  3. 11

    Removing waste and serviceable materials and equipment from work areas after extraction activities have been completed, and clearing rock and mineral spills

    Very Low
  4. 10.8

    Sorting, loading, unloading, stacking and storing tools, materials and supplies used by other mine workers.

    Very Low
  5. 10.5

    Cleaning machinery, equipment, tools, roadways and haulage tracks

    Very Low
  6. 9.5

    Removing tunnel supports from disused workings in mines and quarries

    Very Low
  7. 8.2

    Removing dangerous projections from mine and quarry workings

    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.

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

AI helps you
40
AI does it for you
18

Helping wins by 22 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 8219

Compared with similar jobs

There are 33 jobs in the “Elementary occupations” group, averaging 84.9. This one is above that.