Shoe Machine Operators and Tenders
Operate or tend a variety of machines to join, decorate, reinforce, or finish shoes and shoe parts.
3,280 people do this job in the US. $35,650 a year.
of the working time. Estimate.
- 6%
- 0%
- 94%
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, 5%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 6%. Today's estimate: 6%.
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 . 19 tasks from .
| Task | Kind | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Perform routine equipment maintenance such as cleaning and lubricating machines or replacing broken needles.Done daily by most who do it. | 18% | 13 min4 min to 33 min | Stays with people | |
| Collect shoe parts from conveyer belts or racks and place them in machinery such as ovens or on molds for dressing, returning them to conveyers or racks to send them to the next work station.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 10% | 10 min4 min to 21 min | Stays with people | |
| Test machinery to ensure proper functioning before beginning production.Done daily by most who do it. | 8% | 7 min3 min to 17 min | Stays with people | |
| Operate or tend machines to join, decorate, reinforce, or finish shoes and shoe parts.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 7% | 4 min2 min to 13 min | Stays with people | |
| Study work orders or shoe part tags to obtain information about workloads, specifications, and the types of materials to be used.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 6% | 4 min2 min to 13 min | 100%Half by now | |
| Select and place spools of thread or pre-wound bobbins into shuttles, or onto spindles or loupers of stitching machines.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 6% | 4 min2 min to 10 min | Stays with people | |
| Inspect finished products to ensure that shoes have been completed according to specifications.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 6% | 3 min1 min to 8 min | Stays with people | |
| Turn knobs to adjust stitch length and thread tension.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 5% | 4 min2 min to 10 min | Stays with people | |
| Turn setscrews on needle bars, and position required numbers of needles in stitching machines.Done daily by most who do it. | 5% | 10 min4 min to 25 min | Stays with people | |
| Remove and examine shoes, shoe parts, and designs to verify conformance to specifications such as proper embedding of stitches in channels.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 5% | 3 min1 min to 7 min | Stays with people | |
| Draw thread through machine guide slots, needles, and presser feet in preparation for stitching, or load rolls of wire through machine axles.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 4% | 3 min2 min to 8 min | Stays with people | |
| Align parts to be stitched, following seams, edges, or markings, before positioning them under needles.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 4% | 2 min1 min to 4 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.
- Sewing Machine Operators2% now, 2% by 2028
- Cutting and Slicing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders7% now, 7% by 2028
- Shoe and Leather Workers and Repairers2% now, 2% by 2028
- Grinding and Polishing Workers, Hand11% now, 11% by 2028
- Cutters and Trimmers, Hand5% now, 5% by 2028
- Grinding, Lapping, Polishing, and Buffing Machine Tool Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic18% now, 18% 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).