Job Check
Reinforcing Iron and Rebar Workers
Position and secure steel bars or mesh in concrete forms in order to reinforce concrete. Use a variety of fasteners, rod-bending machines, blowtorches, and hand tools. Includes rod busters.
9 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Position and secure steel bars, rods, cables, or mesh in concrete forms, using fasteners, rod-bending machines, blowtorches, or hand tools.Mostly human for now
- 02Determine quantities, sizes, shapes, and locations of reinforcing rods from blueprints, sketches, or oral instructions.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 03Space and fasten together rods in forms according to blueprints, using wire and pliers.Mostly human for now
- 04Use forklifts or cranes to move construction material, such as rebar.No rating yet
- 05Cut rods to required lengths, using metal shears, hacksaws, bar cutters, or acetylene torches.Mostly human for now
- 06Unload rebar from trucks.No rating yet
- 07Place blocks under rebar to hold the bars off the deck when reinforcing floors.Mostly human for now
- 08Cut and fit wire mesh or fabric, using hooked rods, and position fabric or mesh in concrete to reinforce concrete.Mostly human for now
- 09Bend steel rods with hand tools or rod-bending machines and weld them with arc-welding equipment.Mostly human for now
Tasks from O*NET® 31.0 (US Department of Labor, CC BY 4.0, changed by us), most important first. “Already use” comes from Anthropic’s data on real work chats with Claude; “could speed up” from task ratings made with GPT-4 in 2023.
Four studies, side by side
None is a forecast of job lossToo little dataNot enough work use was seen to measure. This does not mean the job is safe from AI.Anthropic, 2026
7%of this job’s tasks an AI model could do in half the time, counting tasks that need extra tools as half (rated in 2023).Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin and Rock, 2023
Above 13% of jobsin how often and how well AI helped with this job’s work in Microsoft Copilot chats (2024 data).Microsoft Research (Tomlinson et al.), 2025
Above 82% of jobsin how much of this job’s physical work robots have been shown to do, from factories to homes (2026).Anthropic, 2026
Your human edge
The main tasks with no real AI use seen and no big speed-up expected. This is where your skill counts most today.
- Position and secure steel bars, rods, cables, or mesh in concrete forms, using fasteners, rod-bending machines, blowtorches, or hand tools.
- Space and fasten together rods in forms according to blueprints, using wire and pliers.
- Cut rods to required lengths, using metal shears, hacksaws, bar cutters, or acetylene torches.