Farm equipment mechanics and service technicians

SOC 49-3041 · 49-0000 · Score reference month September 2026

Diagnose, adjust, repair, or overhaul farm machinery and vehicles, such as tractors, harvesters, dairy equipment, and irrigation systems.

In short

The national Job Market Health score is in the Balanced band for September 2026.

Job Market Health score

57/ 100
Balanced

Stable · -1

Confidence
Medium
Restated score
57
Methodology
v1.0
Geography
US
  • At least 80% of required inputs are covered; one or more broader proxies may be used.

Job Market Health scores are derived indicators based on published data, informational only, not a forecast or guarantee.

$56,550Median annual wageOEWS May 2025
3,700Projected annual openingsBLS Employment Projections 2025-2035
+10.7%Projected growth2025–2035
37,870Total employmentOEWS May 2025

Latest interpretation

What stands out for farm equipment mechanics and service technicians

The clearest signals from the latest validated score, outlook and metro data.

Long-term outlook is the strongest component

Long-term outlook scores 79/100, compared with 52/100 for occupation fundamentals, a 27-point difference.

JobMarketHealth score components

Long-term growth is projected at 10% or more

BLS projects 3,700 average annual openings and +10.7% employment growth from 2025 to 2035. Projected openings are a modeled annual average, not vacancies open today.

BLS Employment Projections

Largest published metro market

Fresno, CA has the largest published metro employment count for farm equipment mechanics and service technicians, at 530 jobs. The next-largest published metro is Visalia, CA with 440 jobs. This measures employment scale, not market quality.

BLS OEWS

Local market context

QCEW industry conditions for this occupation’s employment mix

Choose a state to see how the industries that employ this occupation are performing locally.

Choose a state above to explore its available industry context.

How to read this section

QCEW measures employment and wages by industry, not by occupation. We weight those industry conditions using the published industry mix for this occupation. These figures describe the industries that employ this occupation; they are not direct counts of people working in the occupation or jobs currently open.

Source: BLS QCEW. This section is not part of the national 0 to 100 Job Market Health score. See the methodology.

Compare states for farm equipment mechanics and service techniciansSide-by-side published industry conditions for two or three states. There is no state-level health score; the 0 to 100 score is national.

How to read this page

The score is a national composite from 0 to 100 that weights near term hiring demand at 50 percent, the occupation's own employment fundamentals at 30 percent, and long-term outlook at 20 percent. Wages and occupation profile details are context shown alongside it, not score inputs. See the full methodology.

Median annual wage and metro employment come from BLS OEWS, which is annual. Projected annual openings and projected growth come from BLS Employment Projections and describe the published projection horizon, so they are not a count of jobs open today. Values shown as not published are suppressed by the source rather than filled in here.

Job Market Health trend

Published composite score · 0–100 · by reference month

Latest published values
  • Sep 2657 / 100
View values: Job Market Health history
Job Market Health history
Reference monthScore / 100
Jan 2545
Feb 2546
Mar 2547
Apr 2545
May 2545
Jun 2545
Jul 2545
Aug 2547
Sep 2546
Oct 2549
Nov 2548
Dec 2548
Jan 2647
Feb 2648
Mar 2652
Apr 2655
May 2659
Jun 2660
Jul 2660
Aug 2658
Sep 2657

Score components

The three published inputs behind the composite · each 0–100

Current demand52 / 100
Occupation fundamentals52 / 100
Long-term outlook79 / 100

Largest metro markets by employment

OEWS employment count, where the jobs are, not a quality ranking

OEWS May 2025. These occupation counts describe the survey reference period.

Linked metro names open overall job-market profiles.

Compare cities for this career →

Employment · number of jobs

  • Fresno, CA530
  • Visalia, CA440
  • Salinas, CA410
  • Bakersfield-Delano, CA400
  • Kansas City, MO-KS400
  • Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN360
  • Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX360
  • Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ340
  • Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL310
  • Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA290
Largest metro markets by employment
Metro areaEmploymentJobs per 1,000Median annual wage
Fresno, CA5301.11$48,760
Visalia, CA4402.58$47,320
Salinas, CA4102.18$47,400
Bakersfield-Delano, CA4001.17$47,210
Kansas City, MO-KS4000.36$50,290
Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN3600.08$63,900
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX3600.09$59,290
Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ3400.14$63,760
Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL3100.11$49,130
Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA2900.24$62,200

Education & training

Typical entry requirements · BLS Employment Projections 2025-2035

Typical education
High school diploma or equivalent
Work experience
None
On-the-job training
Long-term on-the-job training
Projected employment
46,400 jobs

Top skills

Occupation profile · O*NET 31.0 Database

  • Equipment Maintenance
  • Repairing
  • Troubleshooting
  • Operation and Control
  • Critical Thinking
  • Complex Problem Solving
  • Operations Monitoring
  • Quality Control Analysis
  • Equipment Selection
  • Active Listening

Also known as: Agricultural Mechanic (Ag Mechanic), Agricultural Service Technician (Ag Service Tech), Dairy Service Technician (Dairy Service Tech), Farm Equipment Mechanic, Farm Equipment Service Technician (Farm Equipment Service Tech), Field Mechanic

AI & this occupation

How AI relates to Farm equipment mechanics and service technicians work

Across 4 research exposure measures, Farm equipment mechanics and service technicians is in the lower technical AI exposure band based on the mean of the available source-specific percentile ranks. Exposure describes how much of the work the studied AI capabilities could technically assist with; it is not a forecast of job loss.

The saved Anthropic task-exposure benchmark records a zero index for this occupation. This is not proof of no AI use; the observation window is not recorded in this saved release.

JobMarketHealth has not measured an AI effect on this occupation's employment or wages, and these figures do not enter its scores; there is no clear evidence of displacement in the data shown here.

Technical AI exposureLower exposureMean of 4 available source-specific percentile ranks (4 measures checked); fixed exposure bands, not a national rank of the composite
Dated Claude task exposureLower thirdObserved task-exposure benchmark 0.000; observation window not recorded
Business AI use (BTOS Core)24.6%U.S. businesses using AI, two weeks ending 2026-10-04; all industries, not this occupation
Historical task mix (2025)Not enough tasksFewer than 3 observed tasks
Measured labor-market effectNot estimatedJobMarketHealth does not attribute employment or wage changes to AI

Exposure measures (kept separate)

  • GPTs are GPTs exposure (β, GPT-4 rated): 0.12 of 1, national percentile 24 (lower third)
  • Microsoft AI applicability: 0.12 of 1, national percentile 41 (middle third)
  • AIOE (Felten, Raj & Seamans): -1.21 (standardized), national percentile 12 (lower third)
  • OECD AI Capability Gap (lower gap = higher potential exposure): gap 5.0 of 23, national percentile 27 (lower third)
OECD capability gap by domain

As published by the OECD: the gap between what the occupation demands (0-5) and current AI capability in each domain. A lower gap means AI is closer to the requirement (higher potential exposure); 0 means AI already meets it or the domain is not relevant.

  • Language: gap 0.00 (demand 2.50 of 5)
  • Social interaction: gap 0.00 (demand 2.00 of 5)
  • Problem solving: gap 1.10 (demand 3.10 of 5)
  • Creativity: gap 0.00 (demand 1.95 of 5)
  • Metacognition & critical thinking: gap 1.00 (demand 3.00 of 5)
  • Knowledge, learning & memory: gap 0.65 (demand 3.65 of 5)
  • Vision: gap 0.75 (demand 3.75 of 5)
  • Manipulation: gap 2.00 (demand 4.00 of 5)
  • Robotic intelligence: gap 1.70 (demand 3.70 of 5)

National context: what businesses used generative AI for

From the Census 2025-26 BTOS AI Supplement (all industries; businesses whose employees used generative AI). Census did not measure Farm equipment mechanics and service technicians specifically.

  • Writing or editing documents, emails, or communications: 85.4%
  • Searching for information or technical help: 49.9%
  • Interpreting, analyzing, translating, or summarizing documents: 44.6%
  • Information processing, paperwork, or filing: 34.7%

Exposure and observed usage are separate measures and neither equals job loss. Census BTOS figures are business-level surveys and are not occupation-specific. Sources: GPTs are GPTs occupation exposure; Microsoft Working with AI: AI applicability; AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE); OECD AI Exposure Measure (AI Capability Gap); Anthropic Economic Index; Census BTOS Core AI Use; Census BTOS AI Supplement 2025-26. These figures do not affect Job Market Health scores. Explore AI & Jobs · How we use AI data.

Sources and methodology

The datasets behind the figures on this page

Job Market Health score
Score for reference month September 2026 · methodology v1.0 · MethodologyScore last recalculated Nov 3, 2026 · First published Nov 3, 2026
BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics
Employment, wages and largest metros · OEWS May 2025 · publisher release May 15, 2026 · About this sourceRetrieved Sep 17, 2026
BLS Employment Projections
Projected growth, openings, education and training · BLS Employment Projections 2025-2035 · publisher release Aug 27, 2026 · About this sourceRetrieved Sep 17, 2026
O*NET
Skills, alternate titles and related occupations · O*NET 31.0 Database · publisher release date not verified · About this sourceRetrieved Oct 19, 2026

Values marked “Not published” are suppressed or not published by the source. We leave them blank rather than estimating them. Pipeline status for every source is on Data Status.

Evidence record

JobMarketHealth derived indicator; not a government statistic. The composite score is national and occupation level.

Occupation
Farm equipment mechanics and service technicians
SOC code
49-3041
Geography
United States
Reference month
September 2026
Published Job Market Health score
57 / 100
Restated score
57 / 100
Band
Balanced
Current Demand component
52 / 10050% weight
Occupation Fundamentals component
52 / 10030% weight
Long-Term Outlook component
79 / 10020% weight
Confidence
MediumAt least 80% of required inputs are covered; one or more broader proxies may be used.
Methodology version
v1.0
Source vintage: Annual
EP-2025-2035|CPS-25b-2025|OEWS-2020-2025
Source vintage: Monthly calculated at
2026-11-03T20:58:19.864Z
First published at
Nov 3, 2026
Recalculated at
Nov 3, 2026
Canonical record URL
https://jobmarkethealth.com/occupations/farm-equipment-mechanics-and-service-technicians#evidence-record
Derived by
JobMarketHealth

Keep going

Learn how to judge a market from these numbers in how to tell if a job market is healthy, or why projected growth and annual openings often disagree in projected growth vs projected annual openings. Coverage, revisions and limits are explained on about the data.

The datasets behind these figures, and what each one can and cannot show, are set out on data sources.