Chef / Cook vs Construction Laborer: which is more exposed to AI?
Effectively tied: 3 points separate Chef / Cooks from Construction Laborers.
Chef / Cook scores 18% time-weighted AI exposure and Construction Laborer scores 15% — close enough that the headline number tells you almost nothing. The difference lives underneath it: Chef / Cooks lose the most ground on "inventory and food cost management" (62%), while for Construction Laborers it is "review safety briefings and site instructions" (42%). The two sit in different families — Hospitality & Food and Trades & Construction — so any move between them is a career change, not a lateral step.
Seven dimensions, side by side.
What actually creates the gap.
Both roles hand a similar slice of the week to substitutable work — 0% for Chef / Cooks, 0% for Construction Laborers — but it is different work. Chef / Cook exposure concentrates in "inventory and food cost management"; Construction Laborer exposure concentrates in "review safety briefings and site instructions". Two roles can share a score and face completely different disruption timelines.
- Food preparation and cooking4% · 48% time
- Kitchen team leadership8% · 16% time
- Guest interaction and feedback10% · 6% time
- Use hand and power tools4% · 24% time
- Move materials and prepare work areas6% · 28% time
- Assist skilled trades on-site8% · 18% time
Both roles lean on manual, procedural, judgement — that is the part of your experience that travels intact. The real divide is creative: Chef / Cooks score 84 there against 18 for Construction Laborers, a 66-point spread. That is the gap you would actually have to close.
| DIMENSION | CHEF / COOK | CONSTRUCTION LABORER |
|---|---|---|
| Creative | 84 | 18 |
| Cognitive | 58 | 32 |
| Social | 72 | 48 |
Neither role lists the other as a mapped adjacent career, and the capability profiles sit 31 points apart on average. Treat a move between them as a genuine career change with a retraining cost, not as a hedge against AI exposure.
Score your own exposure in 8 questions →Common questions.
Is Chef / Cook or Construction Laborer more at risk from AI?
Chef / Cook. It scores 18% time-weighted AI exposure against 15% for Construction Laborer — a 3-point gap. 0% of chef / cook work time is already fully substitutable by current models, versus 0% for Construction Laborers.
Which pays more, Chef / Cook or Construction Laborer?
Chef / Cook, by roughly $12k at the median ($58k versus $46k). Note that the higher-paying role here is also the more AI-exposed one, which matters if you are weighing pay against durability.
Can a chef / cook switch to being a construction laborer?
Neither role lists the other as a mapped adjacent career, and the capability profiles sit 31 points apart on average. Treat a move between them as a genuine career change with a retraining cost, not as a hedge against AI exposure.
Which role is growing faster, Chef / Cook or Construction Laborer?
Chef / Cook, at 9% projected ten-year growth versus 4% — a 5-point difference. Growth and AI exposure are separate signals: a role can grow in headcount while the content of the work is substantially rewritten.