Elementary occupations · code 9333
Freight handlers
A robot can move a pallet in a warehouse. Packing a family's furniture is another matter.
AI barely touches any of the six tasks, from packing furniture and carrying goods to loading lorries, ships and planes and hooking up fuel hoses.
What they actually do (and what else they get called)
Freight handlers carry out tasks such as packing, carrying, loading and unloading furniture and other household items, or loading and unloading ship and aircraft cargo and other freight, or carrying and stacking goods in various warehouses. Tasks include - (a) packing office or household furniture, machines, appliances and related goods to be transported from one place to another; (b) carrying goods to be loaded on or unloaded from vans, trucks, wagons, ships or aircraft; (c) loading and unloading grain, coal, sand, baggage and other items by placing them on conveyor belts, pipes and other conveyances; (d) connecting hoses between mainshore installation pipes and tanks of barges, tankers and other ships to load and unload petroleum, liquefied gases and other liquids; (e) carrying and stacking goods in warehouses and similar establishments; (f) sorting cargo prior to loading and unloading. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Baggage handler - Freight handler - Warehouse porter Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Crane operator - 8343 - Forklift operator - 8344 - Hotel porter - 9621 - Luggage porter - 9621
- materials handler
- mover
- stevedore superintendent
- rail intermodal equipment operator
- stevedore
- airport baggage handler
- warehouse worker
- distribution centre dispatcher
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.
The ILO's official verdict: Not Exposed
63 of 427 for holding up against AI
Not quite your week? Make it yours ↓
Why this score?
The ILO rated each of this job's 6 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 14.1 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 14.1 = 85.9.
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 64 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?
Freight handlers 86
vGo 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.
- Tracking goods with scanners.
- Load and route planning.
- Warehouse robots moving standard loads.
Man
What people still do better
Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.
- Handling awkward, heavy and fragile items.
- Packing and loading safely.
- Solving problems when the plan doesn't fit.
Both
What's arriving
New work that only exists because the AI does.
- Working alongside warehouse robots.
- Maintaining automated systems.
- Faster, fully tracked deliveries.
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
30 could do without you
It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 56 of 100.
The robot
The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.
How much it matters here: Higher
64 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?
More fine handwork, and more time in cramped or awkward spots, than a typical hands-on job. That is exactly what machines find hardest: they do best in tidy, predictable places.
Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 42 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.
hands-on
and cramped
Kind of hands-on work Hands-on, fiddly work in tight spaces
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 6 US jobs .
finger skill 40.8 · hand skill 42.4 · cramped spaces 42.8 · averaged · rule: hands-on 50+ · fiddly 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 17, 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.
- 17
Packing office or household furniture, machines, appliances and related goods to be transported from one place to another
Very Low - 16
Carrying and stacking goods in warehouses and similar establishments
Very Low - 15
Loading and unloading grain, coal, sand, baggage and other items by placing them on conveyor belts, pipes and other conveyances
Very Low - 14
Sorting cargo prior to loading and unloading.
Very Low - 14
Carrying goods to be loaded on or unloaded from vans, trucks, wagons, ships or aircraft
Very Low - 10
Connecting hoses between main shore installation pipes and tanks of barges, tankers and other ships to load and unload petroleum, liquefied gases and other liquids
Very Low
6 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
New · the weekly task audit
Your week, your score
The score above assumes freight handlers spend the same time on every task. You don't. Slide each task to how much of your week it takes, and we'll re-weight the same ILO ratings to fit your job.
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Your score
86 / 100
Same as the job as a whole, so far.
Move the sliders to make it yours.
The job as a whole: 86 / 100
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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
- 56
- AI does it for you
- 30
Sidekick wins, by 26 points.
How good a match is this?
4 Australian jobs match this one, and we've simply averaged them. Treat the numbers as a rough guide.
estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.8-observed-use matched to Australian jobs 7129, 7219, 7411, 8911
Meanwhile, in real life…
Everything else here is about what AI could do. This is what people actually did. When they asked Claude for help with this kind of work, did they hand the whole task over, or roll their sleeves up and work through it together?
Tiny sample alert This job makes up under 0.01% of all the conversations: a tiny slice, mostly the paperwork rather than the work. People using AI for a job isn't the same as AI being able to do it.
Out of every 100 conversations
worked through it together handed it over
The small print
Anthropic publishes this about its own product, and it doesn't feed into any score here. These are people who use Claude, not workers in general, so little use here doesn't mean AI can't reach the job.
These two add up to 100. The bars elsewhere on the page don't, because each is scored on its own, so we don't put them side by side.
observed use Anthropic Economic Index release 2026-06-26, period beginning 2026-05-01 data 0.8-observed-use 2026-05-01 · Anthropic, about its own product
So, should freight handlers be worried?
Short answer: not really. Put the kettle on.
Not about AI software, but robots are the real question here. Every task rates Very Low. Warehouses already use automated storage and robots for predictable loads; removals, odd shapes and loading ships and planes still need people.
Worth remembering: we score tasks, not jobs. When AI takes on a task, the job usually reshuffles around it rather than vanishing.
How are the neighbours doing?
There are 33 jobs in the “Elementary occupations” family, averaging 85. This one is above the family average.
- Vehicle cleaners 91
- Water and firewood collectors 91
- Crop farm labourers 91
- Garbage and recycling collectors 91
- Civil engineering labourers 91
- Forestry labourers 91
- Building construction labourers 91
- Sweepers and related labourers 91
- Other cleaning workers 90
- Mining and quarrying labourers 89
- Odd job persons 89
- Window cleaners 89
- Fishery and aquaculture labourers 89
- Mixed crop and livestock farm laboure… 89
- Garden and horticultural labourers 88
- Cleaners and helpers in offices, hote… 88
- Livestock farm labourers 88
- Manufacturing labourers not elsewhere… 88
- Kitchen helpers 87
- Drivers of animal-drawn vehicles and … 87
- Domestic cleaners and helpers 86
- Hand launderers and pressers 86
- Street and related service workers 82
- Refuse sorters 82
- Fast food preparers 82
- Hand packers 80
- Shelf fillers 80
- Street vendors (excluding food) 80