Slaughterers and Meat Packers
In short: today's best AI models could do about 0% of this job's working time (projected from METR's April 2026 measurement and Epoch's November 2026 index) if the work were set up for them, and about the same by the end of 2028 if progress keeps its long-run pace. The conversations, in-person and hands-on work, about 100% of the time, stays with people.
Perform nonroutine or precision functions involving the preparation of large portions of meat. Work may include specialized slaughtering tasks, cutting standard or premium cuts of meat for marketing, making sausage, or wrapping meats. Work typically occurs in slaughtering, meat packing, or wholesale establishments.
69,950 people do this job in the US. $40,130 a year.
Reviewed on October 2, 2026: what each task is made of, and what handing it over would ask.
A typical 40-hour week
- AI could take on0 h
- A person checks AI's work0 h
- Desk work AI can't do yet0 h
- Stays with people40 h
Slaughterers and Meat Packers, now: of a 40-hour week, AI could take on 0 hours, 0 hours become checking its work, 0 hours are desk work it can't do yet, and 40 hours stay with people.
Estimates for a typical week of this job, if progress keeps its long-run pace, counting work the best models finish four times in five. Every task is below.
of the working time. Now is projected from METR's April 2026 measurement and Epoch's November 2026 index.
- 0%
- 0%
- 0%
- 0%
- 100%
of the work: Anthropic's measure of what people already bring to Claude at work (2025). It counts help with part of a task, so it can be higher than the share within reach.
On the chosen pace and reliability. Estimate.
Share of the working time within reach, now to 2030
Change assumptionsHide assumptionsLong-run pace, four in five
What each choice means: , , , , . Every pace starts from .
At this date and pace, models finish tasks up to 2.4 work days long four times in five.
What handing it over would take, now
The 0% within reach splits by what a model would need. The dates, pace and reliability follow the controls above. Estimates.
of the working time. The material can be handed to a model and the result handed back.
of the working time. The model has to be connected to the system the work lives in.
is conversation short enough by length. This site leaves conversation with people, so it is not in the total.
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.
Measured use over time
None of this job's 14 tasks showed up in the Claude.ai conversations Anthropic sampled in any of its 7 releases, from February 2025 to May 2026.
Measured, not estimated: Anthropic's samples of Claude.ai conversations, each tied by a model to an O*NET task, from the Anthropic Economic Index. It says where Claude's use goes, not how much of this job's working time it covers, so it is not on the same scale as the reach above. The releases differ in their sample, their classifier and the smallest share they report (the June 2026 file rounds each task to a hundredth of a percent, so a smaller task reads as none), which is why a change of method starts a new line. At least 96% of each older release's task-tied use matched this site's tasks, and all of the newest. Claude.ai only, so use through other tools and other companies' models is not in it. Every job ranked.
Robots and the physical work
Anthropic rates 100% of this job's working time as physical work. For 65% of the working time, a robot has been shown doing most of the task somewhere: 44% in a purpose-built cell, 20% in a structured facility. 0.85 of 3, the 204th highest of the 923 jobs.
- No robot shown 35%
- In a purpose-built cell 44%
- In a structured facility 20%
Anthropic's rating, not this site's estimate: Claude Opus 5, searching the web, rated each physical O*NET task by the kind of setting in which a robot it could cite (deployed, sold or demonstrated) does most of the task, weighted by its own estimate of each task's share of the time (What work can robots do?, September 30, 2026, data CC BY 4.0; every job ranked). A robot shown somewhere is not a robot in your building: cost, setup and safety decide that. The share within reach on this page still counts no body work. The robot behind each rated task is under the task below.
What changes for the people in this job
From the task-by-task review, by the end of 2028 on the long-run pace at four in five. It says which parts of the work stay with people and which change, not whether anyone keeps a job: that depends on decisions no data set can see.
What stays with people
100% of the working time: the conversation, in-person and hands-on parts of the tasks.
- Bone and cut meat, the hands-on work, 28%
- Make line cuts, the hands-on work, 17%
- Trim and cure hides, the hands-on work, 9%
- Grind meat, the hands-on work, 9%
- Skin the animals, the hands-on work, 7%
- Sort and clean viscera, the hands-on work, 7%
What becomes checking the machine
No desk work within reach by then in tasks where a mistake costs something.
What to learn
- The hands-on craft. About 100% of the time is hands-on work, which no model here does; robots are rated separately on this page.
- Judgment where errors are severe. Some tasks are severe if wrong. Knowing when not to trust an output matters more there than speed.
Your own version of this job: read it against your job description. The headline is free; the full personal report, every task with its timeline and what to learn, is $19 (a sample).
The tasks
Sorted by . 14 tasks from .
| Task | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Remove bones, and cut meat into standard cuts in preparation for marketing.Boning and cutting to the standard cuts, each carcass a little different.Done hourly or more by most who do it.Robots: in a purpose-built cell, HAMDAS-RX / WANDAS-RX (Mayekawa DAS series) (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 28% | 21 min8 min to 50 min | Hands-on 100% | Stays with people |
| Tend assembly lines, performing a few of the many cuts needed to process a carcass.The same few cuts on each carcass as the line moves.Done hourly or more by most who do it.Robots: in a structured facility, Marel F-line / M-line pork slaughter lines (deployed). Anthropic's rating. | 17% | 21 min13 min to 33 min | Hands-on 100% | Stays with people |
| Trim, clean, or cure animal hides.Trimming and salting hides by hand.Done daily by most who do it.Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Smarthides salting machine (salt spreader) (Machinefabriek Geurtsen / Smarthides) (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 9% | 25 min8 min to 54 min | Hands-on 100% | Stays with people |
| Grind meat into hamburger, and into trimmings used to prepare sausages, luncheon meats, and other meat products.Feeding the grinder and handling the product.Done several times a day by most who do it.Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Cargill Grind Fort Worth automated grinding lines (two-stage combo dumpers, tailing grind plates, Pieco grinder, Mettler Toledo metal detection) (deployed). Anthropic's rating. | 9% | 21 min13 min to 50 min | Hands-on 100% | Stays with people |
| Skin sections of animals or whole animals.Knife work removing hides.Done daily by most who do it.Robots: no robot shown. Anthropic's rating. | 7% | 13 min4 min to 33 min | Hands-on 100% | Stays with people |
| Cut, trim, skin, sort, and wash viscera of slaughtered animals to separate edible portions from offal.Separating the edible organs from the offal by hand.Done several times a day by most who do it.Robots: no robot shown. Anthropic's rating. | 7% | 10 min4 min to 25 min | Hands-on 100% | Stays with people |
| Slit open, eviscerate, and trim carcasses of slaughtered animals.Opening each carcass and removing the organs by hand.Done daily by most who do it.Robots: no robot shown. Anthropic's rating. | 5% | 8 min4 min to 21 min | Hands-on 100% | Stays with people |
| Saw, split, or scribe carcasses into smaller portions to facilitate handling.Power saw work splitting carcasses on the line.Done daily by most who do it.Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Frontmatec Autoline Splitting Saw APS7 (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 5% | 7 min3 min to 17 min | Hands-on 100% | Stays with people |
| Shave or singe and defeather carcasses, and wash them in preparation for further processing or packaging.Singeing, shaving and washing carcasses on the line.Done hourly or more by most who do it.Robots: in a purpose-built cell, JBT Marel Attack Pluckers / Pluckers-Finishers (poultry defeathering line) (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 4% | 7 min3 min to 17 min | Hands-on 100% | Stays with people |
| Wrap dressed carcasses or meat cuts.Wrapping meat for the cooler or shipment.Done more than weekly by most who do it.Robots: in a purpose-built cell, CRYOVAC brand ALR2 / AutoLoad R2 robotic bag loader (Sealed Air) (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 4% | 8 min3 min to 17 min | Hands-on 100% | Stays with people |
| Trim head meat, and sever or remove parts of animals' heads or skulls.Knife work on the heads.Done several times a day by most who do it.Robots: no robot shown. Anthropic's rating. | 3% | 7 min3 min to 17 min | Hands-on 100% | Stays with people |
| Sever jugular veins to drain blood and facilitate slaughtering.Knife work on the kill line.Done several times a day by most who do it.Robots: no robot shown. Anthropic's rating. | 0.8% | 2 min1 min to 4 min | Hands-on 100% | 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. Made of: how the task's time splits among five kinds of doing. Only the documents and systems parts can count as within reach, so a task that is 30% documents can be at most 30% 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.
- Meat, Poultry, and Fish Cutters and Trimmers0% now, 0% by 2028
- Butchers and Meat Cutters4% now, 4% by 2028
- Farmworkers, Farm, Ranch, and Aquacultural Animals2% now, 2% by 2028
- Graders and Sorters, Agricultural Products7% now, 7% by 2028
- Food Preparation Workers3% now, 3% by 2028
- Animal Breeders33% now, 33% 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).
Questions about this job
- How much of the work of Slaughterers and Meat Packers is within reach of AI now?
- An estimated 0% of the working time is within reach of AI models now and 0% by the end of 2028, on METR's long-run pace at four in five. Within reach means a model could finish work that long at that reliability. It is not a forecast of jobs lost or of savings.
- Which tasks of Slaughterers and Meat Packers come within reach first?
- No task has a meaningful share of its time within reach now or by the end of 2028, on the long-run pace at four in five: the work is mostly people work and body work, which the site does not count.
- Which tasks of Slaughterers and Meat Packers stay with people?
- Tasks that are people work or body work are not counted as within reach at any date. The largest: Bone and cut meat; Make line cuts; and Trim and cure hides. Together such tasks are about 100% of the working time, and the people and body parts of the other tasks stay with people too.
- What should Slaughterers and Meat Packers learn as AI takes on more of the work?
- By the job's own task-by-task review, the first things to learn are the hands-on craft; and judgment where errors are severe. By the end of 2028 on the long-run pace at four in five, about 100% of the working time stays with people, 0% becomes checking a model's work and 0% could be handed over with lighter checks. It says which parts of the work change, never whether anyone keeps a job.
- Do people already use AI for the work of Slaughterers and Meat Packers?
- In the Claude.ai conversations Anthropic sampled for May 2026, no reportable share went to this job's tasks. Anthropic's labor market measure puts the share of the job's tasks seen in real Claude use at work at 0%. These are measures of use, not of how much of the work AI could finish, and they cover Claude only.
- Can robots do the physical work of Slaughterers and Meat Packers?
- Anthropic's robot exposure rating (September 2026) finds 100% of the working time is physical work, and that a robot has been shown doing most of the task, somewhere, for 65% of the working time, 20% in a structured facility. Its index is 0.85 of 3. One example: Marel F-line / M-line pork slaughter lines for "make line cuts". A robot shown somewhere is not one in every workplace; this site's own estimates still count no physical work as within reach.
- How is this estimated?
- From the 14 tasks O*NET lists for the occupation, each with an estimated length checked against GDPval and a share of the working time, reviewed one task at a time on October 2, 2026 for what each is made of (documents, business systems, conversation, in person, hands-on), and METR's measurements of how long a task the best AI models can finish, carried forward to the date from the latest, Claude Mythos Preview (early) in April 2026. Data checked November 10, 2026.
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