Meat, Poultry, and Fish Cutters and Trimmers
Use hands or hand tools to perform routine cutting and trimming of meat, poultry, and seafood.
145,700 people do this job in the US. $38,300 a year.
of the working time. Estimate.
- 0%
- 0%
- 100%
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, 0%. Today's estimate: 0%.
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 . 12 tasks from .
| Task | Kind | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clean, trim, slice, and section carcasses for future processing.Done daily by most who do it. | 22% | 38 min13 min to 1.7 h | Stays with people | |
| Process primal parts into cuts that are ready for retail use.Done daily by most who do it. | 19% | 29 min13 min to 1.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Cut and trim meat to prepare for packing.Done daily by most who do it. | 12% | 13 min4 min to 33 min | Stays with people | |
| Use knives, cleavers, meat saws, bandsaws, or other equipment to perform meat cutting and trimming.Done daily by most who do it. | 12% | 13 min4 min to 38 min | Stays with people | |
| Inspect meat products for defects, bruises or blemishes and remove them along with any excess fat.Done daily by most who do it. | 7% | 8 min3 min to 21 min | Stays with people | |
| Clean and salt hides.Done daily by most who do it. | 7% | 25 min13 min to 1.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Produce hamburger meat and meat trimmings.Done daily by most who do it. | 6% | 25 min13 min to 1.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Separate meats and byproducts into specified containers and seal containers.Done daily by most who do it. | 3% | 7 min3 min to 17 min | Stays with people | |
| Remove parts, such as skin, feathers, scales or bones, from carcass.Done daily by most who do it. | 3% | 13 min4 min to 38 min | Stays with people | |
| Obtain and distribute specified meat or carcass.Done daily by most who do it. | 3% | 8 min4 min to 21 min | Stays with people | |
| Prepare ready-to-heat foods by filleting meat or fish or cutting it into bite-sized pieces, preparing and adding vegetables or applying sauces or breading.Done daily by most who do it. | 3% | 25 min8 min to 1.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Weigh meats and tag containers for weight and contents.Done daily by most who do it. | 3% | 4 min2 min to 13 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.
- Slaughterers and Meat Packers0% now, 0% by 2028
- Graders and Sorters, Agricultural Products7% now, 7% by 2028
- Butchers and Meat Cutters4% now, 4% by 2028
- Packers and Packagers, Hand7% now, 7% by 2028
- Farmworkers, Farm, Ranch, and Aquacultural Animals2% now, 2% by 2028
- Food and Tobacco Roasting, Baking, and Drying Machine Operators and Tenders8% now, 8% 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).