---
title: "Slaughterer and Meat Packer"
description: "Perform nonroutine or precision functions involving the preparation of large portions of meat. Work may include specialized slaughtering tasks, cutting…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/slaughterer-and-meat-packer"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Slaughterer and Meat Packer

**Category:** Production · **SOC code:** 51-3023 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 51-3023.00

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.

Also advertised as: Boning Room Worker; Meat Packager; Meat Packer; Meat Processor; Meat Wrapper; Saw Man; Side Puller; Wrapper.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $40,130 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $19.29/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $33,340 to $51,090, with the middle half between $36,150 and $46,870
- **Total US employment:** 69,950
- **Typical entry education:** No formal credential
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +2.0% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 7,700 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 51/100 — 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 69,950 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $33,340 |
| 25th | $36,150 |
| 50th (median) | $40,130 |
| 75th | $46,870 |
| 90th | $51,090 |
| Mean (average) | $41,770 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| CO | $50,480 | $48,985 | 1,590 |
| AZ | $49,020 | $48,690 | 440 |
| NE | $48,910 | $54,282 | 5,480 |
| KS | $48,240 | $53,560 | 2,170 |
| MT | $46,700 | $49,342 | 80 |
| SC | $46,000 | $49,067 | 250 |
| OR | $45,980 | $44,485 | 360 |
| OK | $45,970 | $52,332 | 1,560 |
| MI | $45,850 | $47,653 | 2,920 |
| NJ | $45,230 | $41,570 | 1,050 |
| WA | $45,100 | $42,144 | 840 |
| IL | $44,950 | $44,969 | 3,360 |
| MO | $44,490 | $48,989 | 1,280 |
| SD | $44,410 | $50,132 | 740 |
| UT | $44,040 | $44,546 | 560 |

33 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 48 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/slaughterer-and-meat-packer/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/slaughterer-and-meat-packer.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 71,200 in the 2025–2035 base year to 72,600 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 1,500 jobs, or +2.0%. Slower than average: 2.0% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 7,700 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:** No formal educational credential (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 |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 60.8% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 28.6% |
| Some College Courses | 10.6% |

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Speaking — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 1.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 1.8 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.

- Social Perceptiveness — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Monitoring — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operation and Control — importance 2.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Troubleshooting — importance 2.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Quality Control Analysis — importance 2.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 2.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 2.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 2.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Food Production — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Production and Processing — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Law and Government — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Arm-Hand Steadiness — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Finger Dexterity — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Manual Dexterity — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Control Precision — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Static Strength — importance 3.1 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 | 6.62 |
| C — Conventional | 3.53 |
| I — Investigative | 2.24 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.12 |
| S — Social | 1.67 |
| A — Artistic | 1.31 |

### 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 | 86.5 |
| ISTP | 75.1 |
| ESTJ | 73.6 |
| ISFJ | 71.7 |
| INTJ | 62.8 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Meat, Poultry, and Fish Cutter and Trimmer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/meat-poultry-and-fish-cutter-and-trimmer) — median $38,300
- [Butcher and Meat Cutter](https://nuecareer.com/careers/butcher-and-meat-cutter) — median $40,140
- [Farmworker, Farm, Ranch, and Aquacultural Animal](https://nuecareer.com/careers/farmworker-farm-ranch-and-aquacultural-animal) — median $36,670
- [Grader and Sorter, Agricultural Products](https://nuecareer.com/careers/grader-and-sorter-agricultural-products) — median $35,730
- [Food Preparation Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/food-preparation-worker) — median $35,320
- [Animal Breeder](https://nuecareer.com/careers/animal-breeder) — median $51,130
- [Packer and Packager, Hand](https://nuecareer.com/careers/packer-and-packager-hand) — median $36,280
- [Cook, Restaurant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cook-restaurant) — median $37,390
- [Food and Tobacco Roasting, Baking, and Drying Machine Operator and Tender](https://nuecareer.com/careers/food-and-tobacco-roasting-baking-and-drying-machine-operator-and-tender) — median $44,810
- [Farmworker and Laborer, Crop, Nursery, and Greenhouse](https://nuecareer.com/careers/farmworker-and-laborer-crop-nursery-and-greenhouse) — median $35,660

## 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/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025–2035 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **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/slaughterer-and-meat-packer