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AI Automation Index
Will AI Replace Foundry Mold and Coremakers?
Task-level automation exposure for Foundry Mold and Coremakers: 13 O*NET tasks scored against their work activities, plus the simulator.
E-E-A-T Verified
Developed & audited by Gini Loh Automation Exposure
7%
weighted task index
13 of 13 tasks scored
Median Salary
$48,110 / year
BLS OEWS, May 2025 — this exact occupation
Employment Level
Low
12,790 people hold this job — size, not growth
Projected 2025–35
-23.0%
employment change
800 openings a year · BLS line item
Pay by state
BLS OEWS publishes 33 state estimates for this occupation. Each is its own survey estimate, not the national median adjusted for local prices.
$37,310 – $67,060
Highest medians
Oregon $67,060
Missouri $61,480
Illinois $57,110
Minnesota $56,840
Massachusetts $55,940
Lowest medians
Tennessee $37,310
Florida $38,330
Mississippi $39,560
South Carolina $41,100
Texas $42,190
State figures come from the 51-4071 row in the May 2025 state panel. States where the estimate was suppressed or too small to publish are absent.
What the score is made of
Each task is mapped to its work activities, scored for AI automation potential, and weighted by how important those activities are to the job. These are the components.
Automation potential 7%
Importance-weighted mean of the scored tasks. This is the headline index.
Physical work 100%
Share of weighted tasks in hands-on or machine-operating work activities.
Judgment & influence 0%
Share in analysis, decisions, teaching, directing, advising, or caring for others.
Routine administration 0%
Share in documenting, recording, and administrative activities.
Rewritten by O*NET 0%
Share of weighted tasks O*NET rewrote in a recent update. Reported, not folded into the score.
Consequence of error 22/100
Low
O*NET's own rating of how serious an uncorrectable mistake would be here — respondents, not us. Deliberately not in the index: the score measures what AI can do with the task content, and multiplying it by stakes would be our judgment dressed as data.
Constituent Task Mix
13 tasks for this occupation, weighted by work-activity importance. Shares below are of total task weight, not task count.
High exposure (≥ 60% of the task is automatable) 0%
0 tasks
Medium exposure (≥ 35%) 0%
0 tasks
Low exposure (below 35%) 100%
13 tasks
How would you survive?
Move your week away from the high-exposure tasks and toward the ones that need judgment. The simulator recalculates the index as you shift the mix.
Simulate Upskilling →Constituent Tasks
#12050 · Core · 7% automatable
Clean and smooth molds, cores, and core boxes, and repair surface imperfections.
physical manipulation — Hand finishing of metal edges with tools
Clean production equipment. Smooth metal surfaces or edges.
#12055 · Core · 4% automatable
Sift and pack sand into mold sections, core boxes, and pattern contours, using hand or pneumatic ramming tools.
physical manipulation — Manual placement of materials into molds
Place materials into molds.
#12053 · Core · 10% automatable
Position patterns inside mold sections, and clamp sections together.
physical manipulation — Physical alignment of patterns on workpieces
Position patterns on equipment, materials, or workpieces.
#12054 · Core · 5% automatable
Position cores into lower sections of molds, and reassemble molds for pouring.
physical manipulation — Mold building is hands-on craft work
Place materials into molds. Build production molds.
#12052 · Core · 5% automatable
Sprinkle or spray parting agents onto patterns and mold sections to facilitate removal of patterns from molds.
physical manipulation — Applying parting agents is manual mold prep
Apply parting agents or other solutions to molds.
#12059 · Core · 5% automatable
Form and assemble slab cores around patterns, and position wire in mold sections to reinforce molds, using hand tools and glue.
physical manipulation — Mold building is hands-on craft work
Build production molds.
#12051 · Core · 9% automatable
Move and position workpieces, such as mold sections, patterns, and bottom boards, using cranes, or signal others to move workpieces.
physical manipulation — Rigging and lifting loads with cranes is hands-on
Lift materials or workpieces using cranes or other lifting equipment. Signal others to coordinate work activities.
#12058 · Core · 5% automatable
Lift upper mold sections from lower sections, and remove molded patterns.
physical manipulation — Removing workpieces from molds is physical
Remove workpieces from molds.
#12057 · Core · 8% automatable
Cut spouts, runner holes, and sprue holes into molds.
physical manipulation — Hands-on industrial material cutting
Cut industrial materials in preparation for fabrication or processing.
#12056 · Supplemental · 5% automatable
Tend machines that bond cope and drag together to form completed shell molds.
physical manipulation — Mold building is hands-on craft work
Build production molds.
#12061 · Supplemental · 5% automatable
Rotate sweep boards around spindles to make symmetrical molds for convex impressions.
physical manipulation — Mold building is hands-on craft work
Build production molds.
#12060 · Supplemental · 4% automatable
Pour molten metal into molds, manually or with crane ladles.
physical manipulation — Manual placement of materials into molds
Place materials into molds.
#12062 · Supplemental · 15% automatable
Operate ovens or furnaces to bake cores or to melt, skim, and flux metal.
physical manipulation — Physical control of heating/drying equipment
Operate heating or drying equipment.
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How this was scored
- 1. Tasks. O*NET task statements for this occupation, from a release whose newest record is dated 08/2026.
- 2. Work activities. Each task maps to 1–5 Detailed Work Activities; each activity belongs to one of 41 Generalized Work Activities that O*NET rates for importance (1–5) in this occupation.
- 3. Automation potential. Every work activity carries one score for how far current AI can perform it end-to-end. Tasks inherit the mean of their activities.
- 4. Weighting. Task weight = 0.35 + 0.65 × (importance − 1)/4, scaled by how often the task is performed and by 0.7 for Supplemental tasks. Importance is the task's own O*NET rating where it exists (18,369 of 18,838 tasks); the rest inherit their work activities' importance. The index is the weighted mean.
Check: across the 910 occupations where O*NET also rates how far machine speed sets the pace, this index moves opposite to it (Spearman ρ = -0.49). The more a job is paced by equipment, the less of its task content AI can address — the relationship you would expect if the scoring is working.
Sources · O*NET 31.0 (task records to 08/2026) · BLS OEWS May 2025 · BLS projections 2025-2035 · rubric v2.1 · tasks for O*NET, not a forecast
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