Crossing Guards and Flaggers

Highest risk Low pay & highrisk
Imminent Risk
Low High

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Occupation snapshot

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
2.5/10
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.

Risk & user votes

Calculated automation risk

81% (Imminent Risk)

Imminent Risk (81-100%): This occupation appears highly exposed to end-to-end replacement by AI, software, robotics, or other computer-controlled systems. Roles in this range often involve predictable, repeatable, or rules-based work with limited need for human judgement, trust, creativity, or adaptation to messy real-world conditions. This does not mean every job will disappear immediately, but it is a strong signal to consider safer alternatives or start building more resilient skills.

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

Human strengths important in this job

These are human abilities and work contexts that are important in this occupation. They may help explain why parts of the role are harder to replace end-to-end, but they are not the only inputs into the automation score.

Assisting and caring for others

Quite important
Why this matters
Provide hands-on help, emotional support, or personal care to people—work that depends on empathy, trust, and responding to individual needs in the moment.
Jobs that also use this strength

Working directly with the public

Quite important
Why this matters
The job involves face-to-face interaction with customers, clients, or guests—answering questions, handling requests, and managing service situations in real time. Roles with frequent public interaction are harder to replace end-to-end because they rely on trust, communication, and adapting to unpredictable human needs.
Jobs that also use this strength

What users think

Based on 40 votes

73% chance of full automation within the next two decades

Our visitors have voted that it's probable this occupation will be automated. This assessment is further supported by the calculated automation risk level, which estimates 81% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Crossing Guards and Flaggers will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?

View sentiment trend

Pay & outlook

Wages

Very low paid relative to other professions

In 2024, the median annual wage for Crossing Guards and Flaggers was $37,700 ($18 per hour).

The median annual wage for Crossing Guards and Flaggers was 23.8% lower than the national median annual wage, which stood at $49,500.

View wage trend

Wages over time

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Growth

Moderate growth relative to other professions

The number of 'Crossing Guards and Flaggers' job openings is expected to rise 3.6% by 2034

View employment trend

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.

Volume

Moderate range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2024 there were 90,180 people employed as 'Crossing Guards and Flaggers' within the United States.

This represents around 0.06% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 1 thousand people are employed as 'Crossing Guards and Flaggers'.

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What people are saying (3)

apples (Highly likely)
21 Oct 2019 09:23
i like kids to be safe
Sarah (Moderate)
02 Jul 2019 17:12
Soon, there could be robots telling us when to cross the road with the use of traffic lights.
Frank
22 Jan 2020 05:05
what happens when the traffic lights become sentient?
Leave a reply about this occupation
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Job description

Guide or control vehicular or pedestrian traffic at such places as streets, schools, railroad crossings, or construction sites.

O*NET-SOC code: 33-9091.00