Explore safer careers (5)
Lower estimated automation risk
Why it fits
Experienced meat packers can move into line coordination, safety, sanitation, quality, and throughput oversight.
Why it fits
Meat facility, animal product, sanitation, safety, and compliance exposure support inspection retraining.
Why it fits
Food handling, sampling, quality issues, sanitation, and production standards support food testing work.
Why it fits
Shares knife skills, carcass or product handling, safety, sanitation, and production-line meat preparation.
Why it fits
Directly reuses meat cutting, trimming, sanitation, portion standards, and customer or retail product knowledge.
Occupation snapshot
What does this snowflake show?
What's this?
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
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.
What users think
Based on 47 votes
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 84% chance of automation.
What do you think the risk of automation is?
What is the likelihood that Slaughterers and Meat Packers will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?
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Pay & outlook
Wages
In 2024, the median annual wage for Slaughterers and Meat Packers was $39,790 ($19 per hour).
The median annual wage for Slaughterers and Meat Packers was 19.6% lower than the national median annual wage, which stood at $49,500.
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Wages over time
Growth
The number of 'Slaughterers and Meat Packers' job openings is expected to rise 2.2% by 2034
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Total employment, and estimated job openings
Updated projections are due 09-2025.
Volume
As of 2024 there were 67,500 people employed as 'Slaughterers and Meat Packers' within the United States.
This represents around < 0.001% of the employed workforce across the country
Put another way, around 1 in 2 thousand people are employed as 'Slaughterers and Meat Packers'.
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Job description
Perform nonroutine or precision functions involving the preparation of large portions of meat. Work may include specialized slaughtering tasks, cutting standard or premium cuts of meat for marketing, making sausage, or wrapping meats. Work typically occurs in slaughtering, meat packing, or wholesale establishments.
O*NET-SOC code: 51-3023.00
What people are saying (3)
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