Watch and Clock Repairers

High Risk
67%

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Vote Comments (15)
AUTOMATION RISK
CALCULATED
93%
(Imminent Risk)
POLLING
41%
(Moderate Risk, Based on 94 votes)
Average: 67%
LABOR DEMAND
GROWTH
0.0%
by year 2033
WAGES
$58,140
or $27.95 per hour
Volume
1,880
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
3.2/10
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

93% (Imminent Risk)

Imminent Risk (81-100%): Occupations in this level have an extremely high likelihood of being automated in the near future. These jobs consist primarily of repetitive, predictable tasks with little need for human judgment.

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

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

  • Finger Dexterity

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

  • Manual Dexterity

User poll

41% 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: 93% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Watch and Clock Repairers will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?

Growth

Slow growth relative to other professions.

The number of 'Watch and Clock Repairers' job openings is expected to remain the same 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 'Watch and Clock Repairers' was $58,140, or $28 per hour

'Watch and Clock Repairers' were paid 21.0% higher than the national median wage, which stood at $48,060

Wages over time

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Volume

Significantly lower range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2023 there were 1,880 people employed as 'Watch and Clock Repairers' within the United States.

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

Put another way, around 1 in 80 thousand people are employed as 'Watch and Clock Repairers'.

Job description

Repair, clean, and adjust mechanisms of timing instruments, such as watches and clocks. Includes watchmakers, watch technicians, and mechanical timepiece repairers.

SOC Code: 49-9064.00

Comments (15)

Leave a comment
Wooden Car DOC (Low)
29 Jul 2025 17:31
The complexity of adjusting a fine mechanical watch is too intricate for even sophisticated micro robots. Repairing a fine watch requires extraordinary manual skills and knowledge base.
John (Highly likely)
17 May 2024 07:15
A majority of watch repair work can simply not be done by machine
Hans (No chance)
31 Aug 2023 05:13
Watch reparing is not the same as watch making. Repairs need a high level of analytical skills and hand skills to a) figure out what is wrong b) to rectify what is wrong.

Watch making (manufacturing) has largely 2 levels of skills:

1. Artisan - cannot be replaced by AI.
2. General - The Swatch Group already has a 'no-humans-involved' capabilty and builds its bottom line brand 'Swatch' that way.
Rei (Highly likely)
20 Apr 2022 13:32
With how humans work less and less in dexterity-based jobs, you can expect that sometimes, robots will be used for this kind of work. Humans will only be operating the robot and giving commands, still deciding what kind of malfunction to fix, since most analog watches still need some kind of manual work to be done.
Joe (No chance)
26 Mar 2021 16:51
Too much variance for a machine to know what to do on every watch that is presented, at most it would be limited to only one brand but it still could be perfect
Anonymous (Highly likely)
23 Dec 2020 03:03
Simple and repetitive, good candidate for automation
Watch Mechanic
18 Nov 2020 14:51
Lol it's because watches aren't being used anymore due to smartphones
Sir William
04 Jul 2024 16:33
Luxury Watch market sales are continually increasing by 3-5% each year. The only problem is the watch repair industry itself losing watchmakers. Robots could break into the market, but if you have ever seen how complicated a watch movement is this will most likely be a safe job in the future.
Bernard Everstein (No chance)
20 Oct 2020 20:56
Not cost effective to have a robot with enough precision and space efficiency for this job no chance buster
Opinion (Low)
26 Nov 2019 16:35
Seems like a high-variance, low volume job. A bad candidate for automation. Now, the job field will likely shrink, but that's due to people switching to digital/smart watches, a separate issue.
john doe
19 Nov 2019 18:28
"you go man" "They aren't replacing you!"
Watch Man
21 Jun 2019 02:49
I will have you know I graduated top class at the watchmaker instute, and have 3 medals for my excelent craftsmanship which no robot can replicate
reply person1 (Highly likely)
05 Aug 2019 03:39
lol
reply person2
20 Apr 2020 23:08
You reckon lol any robot will do it better eventually, give it a few years
Watch Bot
26 Apr 2020 07:04
Im about to end this man's whole career
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