Crane and Tower Operators

High Risk
64%

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AUTOMATION RISK
CALCULATED
78%
(High Risk)
POLLING
49%
(Moderate Risk, Based on 73 votes)
Average: 64%
LABOR DEMAND
GROWTH
3.7%
by year 2033
WAGES
$64,690
or $31.10 per hour
Volume
42,260
as of 2023
SUMMARY
What does this snowflake show?
The Snowflake is a visual summary of the five badges: Automation Risk (calculated), Risk (polled), Growth, Wages and Volume. It gives you an instant snapshot of an occupations profile. The colour of the Snowflake relates to its size. The better the occupation scores in relation to others, the larger and greener the Snowflake becomes.
JOB SCORE
4.0/10
What's this?
Job Score (higher is better):

We rate jobs using four factors. These are:

- Chance of being automated
- Job growth
- Wages
- Volume of available positions

These are some key things to think about when job hunting.

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Calculated automation risk

78% (High Risk)

High Risk (61-80%): Jobs in this category face a significant threat from automation, as many of their tasks can be easily automated using current or near-future technologies.

More information on what this score is, and how it is calculated is available here.

Some quite important qualities of the job are difficult to automate:

  • Manual Dexterity

  • Finger Dexterity

User poll

49% chance of full automation within the next two decades

Our visitors have voted they are unsure if this occupation will be automated. However, the automation risk level we have generated suggests a much higher chance of automation: 78% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Crane and Tower Operators will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?

Sentiment

The following graph is shown where there are enough votes to produce meaningful data. It displays user poll results over time, providing a clear indication of sentiment trends.

Sentiment over time (yearly)

Growth

Moderate growth relative to other professions

The number of 'Crane and Tower Operators' job openings is expected to rise 3.7% by 2033

Total employment, and estimated job openings

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the period between 2023 and 2033
Updated projections are due 09-2025.

Wages

Moderately paid relative to other professions

In 2023, the median annual wage for 'Crane and Tower Operators' was $64,690, or $31 per hour

'Crane and Tower Operators' were paid 34.6% higher than the national median wage, which stood at $48,060

Wages over time

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Volume

Moderate range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2023 there were 42,260 people employed as 'Crane and Tower Operators' within the United States.

This represents around < 0.001% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 3 thousand people are employed as 'Crane and Tower Operators'.

Job description

Operate mechanical boom and cable or tower and cable equipment to lift and move materials, machines, or products in many directions.

SOC Code: 53-7021.00

Comments (6)

Leave a comment
Ross (Low)
24 Jul 2025 01:37
Too much visual work to avoid catastophies.

Its cheaper to keep the human for insurance risk.
Sean Hicks (Highly likely)
01 Oct 2024 03:29
It's just a matter of time I mean these owners of these ports they can save millions of dollars because they don't have to pay AI automated workers anything they work 24/7 24 hours 7 days a week they don't take breaks they don't complain they don't need a cafeteria they don't even need a parking lot for their vehicles you don't have to pay them bottom line it's a no-brainer second of all you don't have to give him a pension you don't have to listen to them bitching about strikes and all that nonsense okay it's over all those people will be replaced AI is only been here for a year and a half in the next year to 2 years there will be no dock workers why would they pay people when they can get AI that works for free 24 hours a day 7 days a week no complaining and their job nobody messes up they don't mess up they think basically a hundred thousand times per minute faster than a human being that's a fact human beings are dinosaurs okay these doc workers that are going on strike they want them to so in their contract they can fire them and then they don't have to pay them a pension because they broke their contract that's why biden's not going to interfere and send them back to work they're their own worst enemy they're so stupid and sitting there ways that they're their own worst enemy they're their own demise maybe they could have lasted another couple of years maybe but by doing this they're done in China almost all the ports there's only like 5% of human beings in all the ports in China and Japan there are no more human beings why who needs them Amazon giant buildings Amazon units their buildings are like 8 Miles by four miles four stories in this literally like 20 human beings maybe it's all AI robot why pay humans it's the end of human beings the only people are the greedy owners of all this that are going to be okay and there's no middle class anymore and basically there's going to be hardly any working poor because there's no jobs for them automation is inevitable why pay silly humans when you can get AI that works for free it's a no-brainer
Hunter R (Low)
16 Sep 2024 19:11
Being a crane operator, the amount of real time risk assessment that is needed is not possible by machines. Maybe one day. But not with in 20 years.
Crane Services Edmonton
11 Oct 2023 13:59
Crane and tower operators play a vital role in ensuring safe and efficient lifting operations. This topic explores the responsibilities of operators, including training, certification, and ongoing evaluation to maintain a high level of safety on construction sites.
RICH
20 Jun 2023 16:13
Not for construction cranes. Crawler ,hydraulic cranes.
Anonymous (Highly likely)
21 Sep 2021 23:17
I believe a system of loading and unloading at a port could be done using white circular tags on top of cargo containers to represent the depth and coordinates of a location. A ship-to-shore crane could use Artificial Intelligence to know the type of ship in port and the inventory of shipments using inventory statistics from other AI loading docks. These circles on the tops and possibly sides of the containers (and possibly the boat to determine what kind of boat is docking) could be seen by a camera that could determine the proportions of distance by what size the tags are in comparison to others. The boat would have to dock in a certain zone to be analyzed by cameras. Redundant memory could basically keep ports running at top efficiency as long as engineers could make a crane that could handle high rates of the workforce for the increased efficiency of movement and certainty of execution.

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