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Sewing machine operators

Also called Industrial sewing operator, Garment assembler, Seamstress, Seamer, Line closer

In brief

In May 2025, BLS counted 104,880 US sewing machine operators, with median pay of $36,670 a year. Of the BLS counts since 2003, the highest was 265,200, in May 2003. The earliest figure here is an estimate of 95,000 from 1870, not measured the same way as today's count. The last full technology era for sewing machine operators: Computerized pattern cutting + CNC embroidery machines, 1970 to 2000. Automated cutting reduced cutter headcount substantially; CNC embroidery displaced embroidery operators.

What the sources say

Official outlook

BLS projects employment to decline 15.1% from 2025 to 2035.

BLS Employment Projections 2025-35

AI exposure studies

  • 2.3% of this job's tasks are exposed to large language models. Not a forecast of job losses. Eloundou and others, 2023
  • 0.89 estimated probability that the whole occupation could be computerised, over an unspecified number of years. Not a forecast of job losses. Frey and Osborne, 2013

Since the 2013 prediction

In 2013, Frey and Osborne put this job's probability of computerisation at 0.89. BLS counted 143,370 of these jobs in May 2013 and 104,880 in May 2025 (-27%, a change derived by Future History).

Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35. BLS publishes these counts as yearly survey snapshots and cautions against reading them as a precise trend. In May 2021 BLS changed how it estimates these counts (a model-based method using three years of survey data) and moved fully to the 2018 occupation codes, so part of a change across 2021 can come from the method rather than the work.

Last updated .

Cite this page
APA

Future History. (2026, October 11). Sewing machine operators: jobs and pay since 1870 [Data set; data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35]. https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/51-6031

Chicago

Future History. "Sewing machine operators: jobs and pay since 1870." Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35. Last modified October 11, 2026. https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/51-6031.

BibTeX

@misc{futurehistory_51_6031, author = {{Future History}}, title = {Sewing machine operators: jobs and pay since 1870}, year = {2026}, month = oct, howpublished = {\url{https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/51-6031}}, note = {Last updated 2026-10-11. Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35}, }

The access date is today's date on your device.

drag to travel through time
187519001925195019752000now
Country
2026
Known then as Machine Sewer / Sewing Machine Hand (factory era, Singer patent era)
Known then as Operative / Garment Worker / Stitcher (sweatshop and reform era)
Known then as Sewing Machine Operative / Seamstress (ILGWU union contract era)
Known then as Sewing Machine Operator / Apparel Worker (peak manufacturing era)
Known then as Sewing Machine Operators (BLS SOC 51-6031)
Known today as Sewing Machine Operators (BLS SOC 51-6031)
Projected to still be called Sewing Machine Operators (BLS SOC 51-6031)
Data from the May 2025 survey
US Employment
105K
Est.

Stated in source: BLS OEWS

Official statistic
Report an error
Median Annual Wage
$36,670
Est.

≈ $35,730 in 2024 prices (derived by us, CPI-adjusted)

Official statistic
Report an error
Beat · 1851

August 12, 1851: Isaac Singer receives his patent for an improved lockstitch sewing machine. Singer's machine could sew 900 stitches per minute versus 40 for an expert hand-seamstress. His partner Edward Cabot Clark introduced installment-payment plans that brought the $100 machine within reach of garment lofts and small tailoring shops. By 1860 Singer's factory was producing 13,000 machines per year; within a decade the American ready-to-wear garment industry had been built on machine-operator labor.

Beat · 1900

The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) is founded June 3, 1900 in New York City by seven local unions, representing predominantly immigrant women workers in the shirtwaist and cloak trades. The union would become the central institution organizing sewing machine operators' wages, hours, and working conditions for the next eight decades, eventually reaching 450,000 members at its 1969 peak.

Beat · 1909

The "Uprising of the 20,000": approximately 20,000 shirtwaist workers in New York City walk off the job in a largely spontaneous strike, sparked by Triangle Shirtwaist Factory workers. The strike secured union recognition and improved conditions at many shops, though Triangle itself refused to settle. The strike was the largest US labor action by women to that date.

Beat · 1911

March 25, 1911: Fire breaks out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in Greenwich Village. 146 workers die, mostly young Italian and Jewish immigrant women earning $7-$12 per week. Many jump from eighth and ninth floor windows because factory owners had locked the stairwell doors to prevent unauthorized breaks. The catastrophe drives the creation of New York's Factory Investigating Commission, which generates 38 new labor laws, including fire safety codes, sprinkler requirements, and limits on working hours for women and children. The American Society of Safety Professionals is founded in response.

Beat · 1969

The ILGWU reaches its peak membership of 450,000, the high-water mark of organized representation for US sewing machine operators and garment workers. The same year, US apparel manufacturing employment peaks at approximately 1.2 million workers. Within a decade both figures begin a long decline as brands begin sourcing from lower-wage offshore factories, a process that would accelerate sharply after NAFTA (1994) and China's WTO entry (2001).

Beat · 1994

NAFTA takes effect January 1, 1994, eliminating tariffs on apparel imported from Mexico and Canada. US brands begin shifting cut-and-sew operations to Mexican maquiladora factories. Between 1994 and 2001, US garment worker employment falls from approximately 850,000 to below 500,000. China's WTO entry in December 2001 accelerates the process: the 2001-2009 period sees roughly one-third of all US manufacturing jobs lost, with apparel among the hardest-hit sectors.

Beat · 2018

SoftWear Automation deploys its Sewbot robotic sewing cell commercially, producing one finished T-shirt every 22 seconds with no human hands on the fabric during the sewing cycle. BESTSELLER (the Danish fashion group behind Only, Vero Moda, Jack & Jones) invests in a $20M Series B1 round. The Sewbot is the first commercially deployed robotic system capable of handling limp, deformable fabric through the full assembly cycle for a standardized garment, a technical milestone that had eluded robotics engineers for decades.

How to read this number

OEWS is a point-in-time survey snapshot, not a continuous time series; BLS advises against using it for year-over-year trend comparison.

Each dot is a cited figure over time; the dotted line only links them (values between aren't measured). Hollow dots are estimates.

Official statistic: Copied by a script from a statistics agency table or a published study's table, not retyped by hand. BLS figures and the forecast and exposure tables are also re-checked against that table on every data run. Researched context: Researched from the cited source rather than copied from it by a script, so it is not machine-checked yet. Spot a mistake? Each figure has a “Report an error” link.

Cited forecasts · present → 2035

Will AI replace sewing machine operators? What the research says

Each figure is stated by the named source; we publish no forecasts of our own. Where sources disagree, we show the disagreement rather than an average.

Each figure is stated by the named source; we publish no forecasts of our own. Where sources disagree, the spread is the honest signal.

What published forecasts say
Forecast change in the number of people doing this work, as published by each named source. Bars share one scale on every role, centred on zero and reaching the end at ±30%. Grey marks a small change, 3% or less either way.
BLS Employment Projections 2025-35
→ 2035
-15.1%
BLS National Employment Matrix, 2025-35 cycle, line for SOC 51-6031 (Sewing machine operators): 117.2 thousand jobs in 2025, projected 99.5 thousand in 2035, a change of -17.7 thousand (-15.1%). Matrix employment counts all jobs in the occupation, including self-employed workers (11.3% of this occupation in 2025). The average for all occupations in this cycle is +3.5%.
Official statisticReport an error
How exposed is this work to AI (research measures)
Scores as published by each study. Each row says what it measures. These measure what AI could technically do, not forecasts of jobs lost.
Frey & Osborne (2013), "The Future of Employment"
2013 study · Probability of computerisation (2013 model)
89%
probability
What this measures

Published appendix value for SOC 2010 51-6031 Sewing Machine Operators: probability of computerisation 0.89, rank 530 of 702 (rank 1 is least computerisable). Frey and Osborne estimated in 2013, with a Gaussian-process classifier on O*NET variables, how likely the whole occupation is to be technically automatable over "some unspecified number of years, perhaps a decade or two". It is a probability for the occupation, not a share of tasks and not a forecast of jobs lost.

Official statisticReport an error
Eloundou et al. (2023), "GPTs are GPTs"
2023 study · Share of tasks exposed to LLMs (β, human-rated)
2.3%
of tasks
What this measures

Published occupation-level exposure from the paper's occ_level.csv for O*NET-SOC 51-6031.00 Sewing Machine Operators. Shown: human-rated β = 0.023, the share of the occupation's tasks an LLM could do in at least half the time at equal quality, counting tasks that need LLM-powered software at half weight (β = E1 + 0.5 × E2). Other published measures for this occupation: human-rated α (LLM alone) 0 and γ (all LLM-assisted) 0.047; GPT-4-rated β 0.081. This measures how much of the work an LLM could touch, not how many jobs disappear.

Official statisticReport an error
Today, in this role

What's changing day to day for sewing machine operators

Three parts of your work where AI is already doing real lifting, and what stays yours.

AI is sitting alongside you hereRecord production data including unit counts, downtime events, and defect codes into the factory management system, supporting the line supervisor's ability to track throughput against the daily production plan.

Record production data including unit counts, downtime events, and defect codes into the factory management system, supporting the line supervisor's ability to track throughput against the daily production plan.[1],[7]

Tools picking this up
Where your edge is

Accuracy and consistency in data entry raises floor-level visibility for supervisors; operators with clean data records are trusted with more complex orders and first-pick for cross-training opportunities.

AI is sitting alongside you hereOversee or load material for semi-automated sewing cells and collaborative robot (cobot) workstations, positioning cut panels into fabric fixtures and verifying alignment before each automated sewing cycle.

Oversee or load material for semi-automated sewing cells and collaborative robot (cobot) workstations, positioning cut panels into fabric fixtures and verifying alignment before each automated sewing cycle.[3],[4]

Tools picking this up
Where your edge is

Become the go-to operator for cobot cell changeovers and fixture calibration; the human-robot handoff point is where efficiency is won or lost, and shops pay a premium for operators who minimize cell downtime between orders.

AI is sitting alongside you herePerform inline visual and tactile quality inspection of stitched garments, catching seam puckering, skipped stitches, and shade inconsistencies before pieces reach downstream finishing, flagging batches for AI defect-detection camera review.

Perform inline visual and tactile quality inspection of stitched garments, catching seam puckering, skipped stitches, and shade inconsistencies before pieces reach downstream finishing, flagging batches for AI defect-detection camera review.[9],[10]

Tools picking this up
Where your edge is

Develop pattern recognition for subtle fabric defects (tension history, grain bias) that AI cameras still misclassify; pair human sensory judgment with automated alert data to cut false-positive quarantine rates.

Where sewing machine operators go next

Natural next steps for someone with your foundation: not exits, evolutions.

What each move takes

Senior operators with multi-machine cross-training and a clean data-entry record are natural candidates for first-line supervisor roles. The transition shifts the day-to-day from operating a single head to managing throughput, attendance, and production-plan adherence across a team.

What you'd add
  • · Production scheduling and daily plan management
  • · Line-balancing concepts (takt time, cycle-time analysis)
  • · JUKI JaNets or equivalent shopfloor dashboard administration
  • · Basic conflict resolution and shift handover communication
What it takesSome new skills to pick up
Tools of the era

How has the work of sewing machine operators changed since 1851?

The tools that defined the work, one line per era. Select an era to see how it reshaped the work.

  • Singer lockstitch machine + treadle (foot-powered, patent era)

    Isaac Singer's 1851 patent created the first commercially viable foot-treadle lockstitch machine: two threads, a curved needle, and a mechanism that could run hundreds of stitches per minute, far exceeding the stitches per minute of an expert hand-sewer. The sewing machine operator's core physical skill in this era was managing tension, feeding fabric evenly, and keeping the machine threaded without breaking the needle. All power came from the operator's foot on the treadle; the machine amplified human motion but did not replace it.

    Effect on the work

    A shirt that required fifteen hours by hand could be assembled in one hour by machine. This productivity gain created a new occupation class: the factory sewing operative, earning piece rates to run machines in urban garment lofts.

  • Electric motor drive (Singer electric machine, 1889)

    Singer introduced the first electric sewing machine in 1889, replacing foot-treadle power with a belt-driven electric motor. Adoption spread slowly through the 1890s and accelerated as factory electrification became widespread after 1910. For the operator, electric drive removed the physical fatigue of treadle pumping, allowed faster and more consistent stitching speeds, and made extended production runs feasible. The electric machine also enabled larger, heavier industrial heads capable of stitching denim, canvas, and leather that foot power could not sustain.

    Effect on the work

    Electric drive increased output per operator and standardized stitching speed across a floor, making it easier to set piece rates and manage line balancing. It did not reduce the number of operators needed; rather, it increased total industry output and absorbed more workers.

  • Specialized industrial heads (serger, buttonholer, chain-stitch, blind-hem)

    The 20th century garment factory systematized production by splitting the assembly of a garment across dozens of specialized machines: a lockstitch machine for side seams, a serger (overlock) for finishing raw edges, a buttonhole machine, a blind-hem machine for trouser cuffs, a bartack for stress points. Each operator became expert in one or two machine types rather than the full garment. This division of labor, modeled on Ford's assembly line, enabled higher throughput and lower training time per operator, but it also made the job more repetitive and reduced craft knowledge to a single-stitch specialty.

    Effect on the work

    The assembly-line model supported peak employment: with each operator specializing in a single operation, factories could absorb large numbers of semi-skilled workers and train them quickly. The ILGWU, representing most of these workers from 1900 through the 1970s, used standardized piece-rate contracts to set floor wages across the specialized functions.

  • Computerized pattern cutting + CNC embroidery machines

    Computer-aided design (CAD) for garment pattern-making entered the US industry in the early 1970s; Gerber Technology's automated cutting system (AutoSpreader, AutoCutter) became commercially viable by the late 1970s. CNC-controlled embroidery machines (Tajima, Barudan) entered in the 1980s. These tools did not automate the sewing step itself but transformed the upstream and downstream tasks: patterns were now cut by automated spreader-cutters rather than by hand, and logos and decorative elements were applied by CNC heads rather than by embroiderers. The sewing machine operator's role narrowed to the assembly seam work between cutting and finishing.

    Effect on the work

    Automated cutting reduced cutter headcount substantially; CNC embroidery displaced embroidery operators. The net effect on the broader sewing machine operator category was modest in isolation, but it was one of the early automation signals that the assembly step itself would eventually follow.

  • Global offshoring wave (NAFTA 1994, China WTO 2001)

    NAFTA, implemented January 1, 1994, eliminated tariffs on apparel imported from Mexico and Canada and created a powerful economic incentive to move cut-and-sew operations south of the border. Seven years later, China's entry into the WTO (December 2001) opened a far larger low-wage labor pool to US apparel brands. The tools of this era were logistics and supply-chain management software, not factory machinery: enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, electronic data interchange (EDI) for purchase orders, and container-shipping optimization. From the US sewing machine operator's perspective, the shift looked like factory closures and plant relocations, not technological substitution. Employment fell between 1995 and 2005.

    Effect on the work

    The offshoring wave is the single largest driver of US sewing machine operator employment decline: from approximately 760,000 in 1995 to 124,000 in 2024, a loss of hundreds of thousands of positions over thirty years.

  • Robotic sewing cells + IoT production monitoring (SoftWear Sewbot, JUKI JaNets)

    SoftWear Automation's Sewbot, commercially deployed from around 2018, uses machine-vision fabric tracking to autonomously seam, cut, and label T-shirts at a rate of one finished shirt in well under a minute with no human hands on the fabric during the sewing cycle. JUKI's JaNets IoT platform connects networked sewing heads to a real-time production dashboard, surfacing thread-tension alerts, stitch-skip events, and throughput data without requiring a supervisor to walk the floor. For the remaining US sewing machine operator, these systems are redefining the job: the treadle-era operator fed fabric and ran one head; the IoT-era operator monitors a bank of heads, responds to alerts, and focuses human attention on the complex-seam and specialty-fabric operations that robotic cells still fail on.

    Effect on the work

    Sewbot-class automation is most cost-effective on simple-seam, high-volume standardized products such as T-shirts, basic pants, and flat-seam underwear. Complex-seam operations (curved panels, stretch fabrics, fine materials) remain human-operator tasks.

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Sewing Machine Operators employment and pay by year

On record since1851
Latest US employment104,880 (May 2025)Source: BLS OEWS May 2025Official statisticReport an error
Latest US median pay$36,670 (May 2025)Source: BLS OEWS May 2025Official statisticReport an error
Outlook-15.1% by 2035Source: BLS Employment Projections 2025-35Official statisticReport an error

In other countries

The latest figure each country's statistics agency publishes for this job. Each uses its own occupation definition, survey basis and currency, so the numbers are not directly comparable with each other or with the US figures.

  • Canada (NOC 94132)

    Employment, 2020
    13,495, Statistics Canada Census 2021 Official statistic Report an errorStatistics Canada Census of Population 2021: number of persons with employment income in NOC 94132 Industrial sewing machine operators, Canada, reference year 2020. A recipients basis (anyone with employment income during the year), slightly broader than a point-in-time employed count. Statistics Canada Open Licence.
    Median pay, 2020
    C$30,800, Statistics Canada Census 2021 Official statistic Report an errorStatistics Canada Census of Population 2021 (Table 98-10-0586): median employment income for NOC 94132 Industrial sewing machine operators, Canada, reference year 2020, full-year full-time workers (the basis comparable to the US OEWS full-time median). Statistics Canada Open Licence.
View all 29 years of cited US data, each linked to its source
YearUS employmentAnnual pay (median unless marked)SourceReport
187095,000n/aEst., Wikipedia — Sweatshop (derived estimate) Researched contextReport
1900350,000n/aEst., Historical estimate of US… Researched contextReport
1911n/a$364Est., Annualized garment-worker wage estimate Researched contextReport
1950900,000n/aEst., Historical estimate of US sewing… Researched contextReport
19701,200,000$4,200Est., Wikipedia (employment) Researched contextEst., Annual wage estimate for unionized… (pay) Researched contextReport
1995760,000n/aEst., Wikipedia Researched contextReport
2003265,200$17,710BLS OEWS May 2003 Official statisticReport
2004242,500$17,920BLS OEWS May 2004 Official statisticReport
2005233,130$18,340BLS OEWS May 2005 Official statisticReport
2006219,080$18,810BLS OEWS May 2006 Official statisticReport
2007200,340$19,370BLS OEWS May 2007 Official statisticReport
2008190,440$19,870BLS OEWS May 2008 Official statisticReport
2009165,680$20,260BLS OEWS May 2009 Official statisticReport
2010147,030$20,600BLS OEWS May 2010 Official statisticReport
2011142,860$21,120BLS OEWS May 2011 Official statisticReport
2012142,380$21,270BLS OEWS May 2012 Official statisticReport
2013143,370$21,490BLS OEWS May 2013 Official statisticReport
2014142,070$21,920BLS OEWS May 2014 Official statisticReport
2015141,520$22,550BLS OEWS May 2015 Official statisticReport
2016139,500$23,670BLS OEWS May 2016 Official statisticReport
2017136,530$24,320BLS OEWS May 2017 Official statisticReport
2018136,450$25,030BLS OEWS May 2018 Official statisticReport
2019133,410$26,420BLS OEWS May 2019 Official statisticReport
2020116,520$28,230BLS OEWS May 2020 Official statisticReport
2021116,220$29,690BLS OEWS May 2021 Official statisticReport
2022116,750$31,740BLS OEWS May 2022 Official statisticReport
2023116,130$34,440BLS OEWS May 2023 Official statisticReport
2024109,590$36,000BLS OEWS May 2024 Official statisticReport
2025104,880$36,670BLS OEWS May 2025 Official statisticReport
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