Prepare surfaces for finishing.
Little of this can be handed to software today.
This happens in the physical world, so software agents do not touch it. Automation here means robotics and machinery, which is a different market from the one mapped on this site, on a much slower clock.
| How automatable | Barely automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Physical, manual and inspection work |
| Jobs that do it | 12 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | None |
| O*NET activity | Performing General Physical Activities (4.A.3.a.1) |
What could do this work.
Nothing in our landscape addresses this work. That is the honest answer rather than a padded list: this activity needs a person present, or a machine rather than a software agent.
Who does this work.
12 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Carpet Installers
- Cement Masons and Concrete Finishers
- Coating, Painting, and Spraying Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Floor Layers, Except Carpet, Wood, and Hard Tiles
- Helpers--Brickmasons, Blockmasons, Stonemasons, and Tile and Marble Setters
- Insulation Workers, Floor, Ceiling, and Wall
- Insulation Workers, Mechanical
- Painters, Construction and Maintenance
- Paperhangers
- Plasterers and Stucco Masons
- Tapers
- Terrazzo Workers and Finishers
Work that goes with it.
O*NET groups these under “Perform general construction or extraction activities”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.