Explosives Workers, Ordnance Handling Experts, and Blasters
Place and detonate explosives to demolish structures or to loosen, remove, or displace earth, rock, or other materials. May perform specialized handling, storage, and accounting procedures.
5,100 people do this job in the US. $61,390 a year.
of the working time. Estimate.
- 8%
- 0%
- 92%
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, 0%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 6%. Today's estimate: 7%.
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 . 27 tasks from .
| Task | Kind | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Insert, pack, and pour explosives, such as dynamite, ammonium nitrate, black powder, or slurries into blast holes; then shovel drill cuttings, admit water into boreholes, and tamp material to compact charges.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 17% | 1.7 h38 min to 4.2 h | Stays with people | |
| Place explosive charges in holes or other spots; then detonate explosives to demolish structures or to loosen, remove, or displace earth, rock, or other materials.Done daily by most who do it. | 14% | 2.5 h50 min to 6.7 h | Stays with people | |
| Assemble and position equipment, explosives, and blasting caps in holes at specified depths, or load perforating guns or torpedoes with explosives.Done daily by most who do it. | 13% | 1.7 h38 min to 3.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Examine blast areas to determine amounts and kinds of explosive charges needed and to ensure that safety laws are observed.Done daily by most who do it. | 8% | 1.3 h25 min to 3.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Connect electrical wire to primers, and cover charges or fill blast holes with clay, drill chips, sand, or other material.Done several times a day by most who do it. | 5% | 50 min25 min to 2.1 h | Stays with people | |
| Set up and operate equipment such as hoists, jackhammers, and drills, in order to bore charge holes. | 5% | 2.5 h50 min to 5 h | Stays with people | |
| Create and lay out designs for drill and blast patterns. | 4% | 2.1 h50 min to 5 h | 65%Half by now | |
| Measure depths of drilled blast holes, using weighted tape measures.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 4% | 25 min13 min to 50 min | Stays with people | |
| Tie specified lengths of delaying fuses into patterns in order to time sequences of explosions.Done more than weekly by most who do it. | 4% | 50 min17 min to 1.7 h | Stays with people | |
| Drive trucks to transport explosives and blasting equipment to blasting sites.Done daily by most who do it. | 4% | 1.3 h25 min to 2.5 h | Stays with people | |
| Lay primacord between rows of charged blast holes, and tie cord into main lines to form blast patterns.Done more than yearly by most who do it. | 2% | 1.3 h25 min to 2.5 h | Stays with people | |
| Mark patterns, locations, and depths of charge holes for drilling, and issue drilling instructions.Done daily by most who do it. | 2% | 50 min25 min to 2.5 h | 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.
- Earth Drillers, Except Oil and Gas11% now, 14% by 2028
- Helpers--Extraction Workers0% now, 0% by 2028
- Rotary Drill Operators, Oil and Gas5% now, 5% by 2028
- Continuous Mining Machine Operators0% now, 0% by 2028
- Operating Engineers and Other Construction Equipment Operators9% now, 9% by 2028
- Pile Driver Operators0% now, 0% 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).