Career Explorer Production
Human edge, steady
Slaughterers and meat packers
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.
More resilient than most: more resilient than 71% of the 831 careers we score. AI exposure is very low (the Bureau of Labor Statistics rates it low), and US jobs are projected to change by +2.0% by 2035, slower than average. The work leans on physical dexterity.
AI struggles with much of this work. Hiring is expected to grow slower than average, or to shrink.
- Median pay (2025)
- $40,130
- Job growth to 2035
- +2.0%
- Openings a year
- 7,700
- People doing it (2025)
- 71,200
- Usual route in
- No formal credential, then short on-the-job training
Where people already use AI for this work
- Prepare foods or beverages
From Microsoft Research, Working with AI (2025).
Work AI rarely helps with
- Process animal carcasses
- Clean workpieces, finished products, or other objects
What the work looks like
- Remove bones, and cut meat into standard cuts in preparation for marketing.
- Sever jugular veins to drain blood and facilitate slaughtering.
- Tend assembly lines, performing a few of the many cuts needed to process a carcass.
- Shackle hind legs of animals to raise them for slaughtering or skinning.
- Slit open, eviscerate, and trim carcasses of slaughtered animals.
From O*NET 31.0, US Department of Labor.
What the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects
- Fewer of these jobs, as automated systems are adopted in slaughtering.
Careers using similar strengths, with a stronger outlook
- Rock splitters, quarryHuman edge, growing, Index 92, +5.8%
- Adhesive bonding machine operators and tendersHuman edge, steady, Index 73, +1.3%
- Coating, painting, and spraying machine setters, operators, and tendersHuman edge, steady, Index 78, +2.5%
- Helpers--roofersHuman edge, steady, Index 74, -0.1%
Also known as: Boning Room Worker, Meat Packer, Meat Processor, Meat Wrapper, Meat Packager, Saw Man, Side Puller, Wrapper.
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Sources: US Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Projections 2025 to 2035; O*NET 31.0; Microsoft Research (2025); Anthropic Economic Index (2026); Eloundou and colleagues (Science, 2024); Felten, Raj and Seamans (2023). How we score. Updated 12 October 2026.