Cutters and Trimmers, Hand
Use hand tools or hand-held power tools to cut and trim a variety of manufactured items, such as carpet, fabric, stone, glass, or rubber.
6,060 people do this job in the US. $38,020 a year.
of the working time. Estimate.
- 5%
- 0%
- 95%
Measured, from Anthropic's usage data (2025). Counts help on part of a task.
On the chosen pace and reliability. Estimate.
Share of the working time within reach, now to 2030
What each choice means: , , , , . Every pace starts from .
At this date and pace, models finish tasks up to 4.4 h long four times in five.
How far this has come
With GPT-4, measured in March 2023, 0% of this job's working time was within reach at . With Claude 3.7 Sonnet, measured in February 2025, 3%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 5%. Today's estimate: 5%.
A backcast: today's task data with the best model METR had measured by each date. It shows how fast the models have moved, not what anyone forecast at the time.
The tasks
Sorted by . 18 tasks from .
| Task | Kind | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cut, shape, and trim materials, such as textiles, food, glass, stone, and metal, using knives, scissors, and other hand tools, portable power tools, or bench-mounted tools.Done daily by most who do it. | 17% | 17 min4 min to 1.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Unroll, lay out, attach, or mount materials or items on cutting tables or machines.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 11% | 10 min3 min to 33 min | Stays with people | |
| Mark cutting lines around patterns or templates, or follow layout points, using squares, rules, and straightedges, and chalk, pencils, or scribes.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 10% | 10 min3 min to 25 min | Stays with people | |
| Stack cut items and load them on racks or conveyors or onto trucks.Done several times a day by most who do it. | 7% | 10 min3 min to 29 min | Stays with people | |
| Fold or shape materials before or after cutting them.Done several times a day by most who do it. | 6% | 7 min2 min to 21 min | Stays with people | |
| Position templates or measure materials to locate specified points of cuts or to obtain maximum yields, using rules, scales, or patterns.Done daily by most who do it. | 6% | 8 min3 min to 25 min | Stays with people | |
| Clean, treat, buff, or polish finished items, using grinders, brushes, chisels, and cleaning solutions and polishing materials.Done daily by most who do it. | 5% | 13 min3 min to 38 min | Stays with people | |
| Adjust guides and stops to control depths and widths of cuts.Done several times a day by most who do it. | 5% | 8 min3 min to 21 min | Stays with people | |
| Separate materials or products according to size, weight, type, condition, color, or shade.Done daily by most who do it. | 5% | 8 min3 min to 25 min | Stays with people | |
| Read work orders to determine dimensions, cutting locations, and quantities to cut.Done daily by most who do it. | 5% | 7 min3 min to 17 min | 100%Half by now | |
| Trim excess material or cut threads off finished products, such as cutting loose ends of plastic off a manufactured toy for a smoother finish.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 4% | 3 min1 min to 8 min | Stays with people | |
| Replace or sharpen dulled cutting tools such as saws.Done more than monthly by most who do it. | 4% | 17 min4 min to 50 min | Stays with people |
Within reach, per task: the share of the task's time whose instances are short enough for a model to finish at the chosen date, pace and reliability. Half by: the date half of that time comes within reach.
Jobs that share skills with this one
From O*NET's related occupations. Within reach now and by the end of 2028, long-run pace, four in five.
- Cutting and Slicing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders7% now, 7% by 2028
- Grinding and Polishing Workers, Hand11% now, 11% by 2028
- Sewing Machine Operators2% now, 2% by 2028
- Sawing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Wood8% now, 8% by 2028
- Woodworking Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Except Sawing7% now, 7% by 2028
- Textile Cutting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders13% now, 14% by 2028
Where this job works
The industry groups that employ the most of it (BLS, May 2025).
Where the most of these jobs are
The metro areas with the most people in it (BLS, May 2025).