---
title: "Helpers--Production Worker"
description: "Help production workers by performing duties requiring less skill. Duties include supplying or holding materials or tools, and cleaning work area and…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/helpers-production-worker"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Helpers--Production Worker

**Category:** Production · **SOC code:** 51-9198 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 51-9198.00

Help production workers by performing duties requiring less skill. Duties include supplying or holding materials or tools, and cleaning work area and equipment.

Also advertised as: Assembly Line Worker; Control Room Helper; Laminator Helper; Machine Helper; Machine Operator Helper; Press Helper; Press Room Helper; Production Helper.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $39,070 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $18.78/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $31,140 to $53,410, with the middle half between $35,220 and $45,990
- **Total US employment:** 165,700
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -8.2% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 20,900 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 57/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 165,700 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $31,140 |
| 25th | $35,220 |
| 50th (median) | $39,070 |
| 75th | $45,990 |
| 90th | $53,410 |
| Mean (average) | $41,120 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| ND | $46,170 | $51,900 | 220 |
| MT | $46,110 | $48,719 | 220 |
| IA | $45,560 | $51,913 | 2,070 |
| CO | $45,550 | $44,201 | 1,350 |
| WA | $45,450 | $42,471 | 3,620 |
| OR | $45,390 | $43,914 | 2,420 |
| CT | $45,260 | $43,683 | 1,400 |
| WI | $45,100 | $47,930 | 2,900 |
| NE | $45,020 | $49,965 | 700 |
| MN | $44,720 | $45,345 | 2,570 |
| RI | $44,720 | $43,723 | 210 |
| MD | $44,680 | $42,569 | 1,650 |
| HI | $44,380 | $40,363 | 230 |
| ME | $44,120 | $45,461 | 470 |
| CA | $43,970 | $39,713 | 16,730 |

36 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 51 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/helpers-production-worker/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/helpers-production-worker.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 167,400 in the 2025–2035 base year to 153,600 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 13,800 jobs, or -8.2%. Declining: -8.2% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 20,900 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Short-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 34.6% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 31.9% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 19.9% |
| First Professional Degree | 7.6% |
| Some College Courses | 6.0% |

## What the work involves

- Examine products to verify conformance to quality standards.
- Lift raw materials, finished products, and packed items, manually or using hoists.
- Count finished products to determine if product orders are complete.
- Transfer finished products, raw materials, tools, or equipment between storage and work areas of plants and warehouses, by hand or using hand trucks or powered lift trucks.
- Pack and store materials and products.
- Load and unload items from machines, conveyors, and conveyances.
- Help production workers by performing duties of lesser skill, such as supplying or holding materials or tools, or cleaning work areas and equipment.
- Mark or tag identification on parts.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Operations Monitoring — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operation and Control — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Quality Control Analysis — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Equipment Maintenance — importance 2.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Repairing — importance 2.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 2.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Production and Processing — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mechanical — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 2.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 2.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Near Vision — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Manual Dexterity — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Static Strength — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Realistic (R), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 6.54 |
| C — Conventional | 4.40 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.89 |
| S — Social | 1.67 |
| I — Investigative | 1.30 |
| A — Artistic | 1.14 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 86.6 |
| ISFJ | 77.0 |
| ESTJ | 76.9 |
| ISTP | 69.7 |
| ESFJ | 61.1 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ. The bank also flags this occupation as introvert-friendly, meaning O\*NET work-context ratings put it low on public contact and performing for the public.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Helpers--Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/helpers-installation-maintenance-and-repair-worker) — median $39,630
- [Helpers--Extraction Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/helpers-extraction-worker) — median $47,730
- [Machine Feeder and Offbearer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/machine-feeder-and-offbearer) — median $41,220
- [Helpers--Carpenter](https://nuecareer.com/careers/helpers-carpenter) — median $43,780
- [Helpers--Brickmason, Blockmason, Stonemason, and Tile and Marble Setter](https://nuecareer.com/careers/helpers-brickmason-blockmason-stonemason-and-tile-and-marble-setter) — median $47,550
- [Helpers--Painter, Paperhanger, Plasterer, and Stucco Mason](https://nuecareer.com/careers/helpers-painter-paperhanger-plasterer-and-stucco-mason) — median $40,470
- [Maintenance Worker, Machinery](https://nuecareer.com/careers/maintenance-worker-machinery) — median $60,850
- [Packer and Packager, Hand](https://nuecareer.com/careers/packer-and-packager-hand) — median $36,280
- [Adhesive Bonding Machine Operator and Tender](https://nuecareer.com/careers/adhesive-bonding-machine-operator-and-tender) — median $46,460
- [Laborer and Freight, Stock, and Material Mover, Hand](https://nuecareer.com/careers/laborer-and-freight-stock-and-material-mover-hand) — median $40,240

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/helpers-production-worker