JobBreak

Installation, Maintenance, and Repair · United States (national)

Home Appliance Repairers

How exposed this work is to automation, shown as ranges with the reasoning and sources.

The short version: this role is moderately exposed to automation, and the bigger shift looks near-term. It is a sourced range, not a verdict, and the detail is below.

Built on O*NET tasks, BLS pay and projections, and peer-reviewed AI-exposure research. Sources shown. Data snapshot SNAPSHOT-2026-11-06. How it works
10.9 of 100
AI / softwarerange 0.0 to 22.9
47.2 of 100
Physical / roboticsrange 35.2 to 59.2

When the change is likely

change likely 0y 5y 10y 15y 20+y

Near-term, high local demand declining

What to do about it

Use AI to outpace AI.

Strategies to protect your livelihood, most important first.

1
Act within the next 1 to 2 years
Displacement for this role is near-term. Start a concrete reskilling plan now, while you still have income and leverage.
2
Move up from the task to the system
Robotics targets the physical work. Shift toward supervising, maintaining, or programming the automation instead of competing with it.
3
Build a financial buffer
Keep 6 to 12 months of expenses and diversify your income, so a disruption is a setback rather than a catastrophe.
4
Add a recognised credential
A certification or license raises the bar against automation and signals value in a tightening market.

Which of my tasks are exposed

Bill customers for repair work, and collect payment.
47.2
Observe and examine appliances during operation to detect specific malfunctions such as loose parts or leaking fluid.
100.0
Talk to customers or refer to work orders to establish the nature of appliance malfunctions.
100.0
Refer to schematic drawings, product manuals, and troubleshooting guides to diagnose and repair problems.
50.0
Trace electrical circuits, following diagrams, and conduct tests with circuit testers and other equipment to locate shorts and grounds.
100.0
Replace worn and defective parts such as switches, bearings, transmissions, belts, gears, circuit boards, or defective wiring.
47.2
Provide repair cost estimates, and recommend whether appliance repair or replacement is a better choice.
50.0
Disassemble appliances so that problems can be diagnosed and repairs can be made.
47.2

Longer, orange bars are more automatable; short green bars are resistant.

What is driving my result

lowers risk
raises risk
Task: Observe and examine appliances during operation to detect specific malfunctions such as loose parts or leaking fluid.
Task: Talk to customers or refer to work orders to establish the nature of appliance malfunctions.
Local demand is declining

How this score is calculated

  1. Map Home Appliance Repairers to its standard O*NET task list (8 core tasks).
  2. Score each task for AI/software exposure (Eloundou et al. 2023) and physical/robotics exposure (an O*NET work-context proxy), each 0 to 100.
  3. The two axis scores are the task averages: AI 10.9, robotics 47.2.
  4. The timeline comes from the higher axis (47.2), shifted for local demand (declining), and seniority. It is read against your remaining working years.
  5. Ranges are about ±12 points. A backtest against real BLS employment change shows the risk ranking holds in aggregate, but individual outcomes are predicted weakly, so results are ranges, never a flat verdict.

Sources: O*NET, Eloundou et al. (2023), GPTs are GPTs, O*NET Work Context, BLS CPI-U, BLS OEWS. Snapshot SNAPSHOT-2026-11-06. Full method and backtest on How it works.

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