Time Machine

Extruding and forming operators

Name: Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders: employment and wages since 1920
Creator: Future History
License: https://futurehistory.earth/terms

Official title Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders (SOC 51-9041)

In brief

In May 2025, BLS counted 58,770 US extruding and forming operators, with median pay of $45,760 a year. By the method BLS used before May 2021, the highest count from 2003 to 2020 was 88,600, in May 2007. The earliest figure here is an estimate of 45,000 from 1920, not measured the same way as today's count. The last full technology era for extruding and forming operators: Statistical Process Control and touchscreen HMI operator interfaces, 1990 to 2015. SPC and HMI adoption did not eliminate forming-machine operators but raised the floor on required capability.

Official statistic: latest count and pay, highest count.Researched context: earliest figure.

What the sources say

Official outlook

BLS projects employment to grow 1.5% from 2025 to 2035.

BLS Employment Projections 2025-35

Official statistic

AI exposure studies

0.93 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 Official statistic

Since the 2013 prediction

In 2013, Frey and Osborne put this job's probability of computerisation at 0.93. BLS counted 69,740 of these jobs in May 2013 and 58,770 in May 2025. The count moved sharply in one step, May 2020 to May 2021, when BLS changed how it estimates these counts, so no change is derived here.

Official statistic

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 31 October 2026.

Cite this page

APA

Future History. (2026, October 31). Extruding and forming operators: jobs and pay since 1920 [Data set; data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35]. https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/51-9041

Chicago

Future History. "Extruding and forming operators: jobs and pay since 1920." Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35. Last modified October 31, 2026. https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/51-9041.

BibTeX

@misc{futurehistory_51_9041, author = {{Future History}}, title = {Extruding and forming operators: jobs and pay since 1920}, year = {2026}, month = oct, howpublished = {\url{https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/51-9041}}, note = {Last updated 2026-10-31. Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35}, }

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1925195019752000now

2026

Known then as Glass Machine Operator / Rubber Mill Operator / Press Operator (material-specific titles, no unified category)

Known then as Forming Machine Operator / Extruding Machine Operator (Census broad grouping under "Operative" or "Laborer, Manufacturing")

Known then as Plastic/Rubber Extruding Machine Operator; Glass-Forming Machine Operator (occupationally specific but no unified BLS code)

Known then as Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders (BLS SOC 51-9041)

Known today as Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders (BLS SOC 51-9041)

Projected to still be called Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders (BLS SOC 51-9041)

Data from the May 2025 survey

US Employment

59K

Est.

Stated in source: BLS OEWS

Official statistic

Report an error

Median Annual Wage

$45,760

≈ $44,587 in 2024 prices (derived by us, CPI-adjusted)

Official statistic

Report an error

Beat · 1904

The Owens Automatic Rotary Bottle Machine enters commercial deployment in US glass factories. Michael Owens holds US Patent 766,768. The machine produces 240 bottles per minute and reduces labor costs in adopting plants by up to 80 percent. Its adoption effectively ends the traditional glassblowing apprenticeship in the container industry, but creates a smaller, steadier workforce of machine setters and operators who monitor the automatic cycles. By 1915, the Illinois Glass Company had fully modernized around Owens machine-made bottles.

Beat · 1919

Owens Bottle Machine Company renames itself Owens Bottle Company, signaling the transition from a machine-licensing business to a production company. In 1929, it merges with Illinois Glass Company to form Owens-Illinois Glass Company, which will dominate US glass-container manufacturing for decades. The consolidation concentrates the glass-forming operator workforce in large, union-organized plants across Ohio, New Jersey, and Illinois.

Beat · 1935

Paul Troester and Ashley Gershoff achieve the first thermoplastic extrusion in Hamburg, Germany, processing PVC through a single-screw machine. The technology reaches US plastics factories within a decade. At roughly the same time, General Mills pioneers food extrusion for breakfast cereal pellets: the screw extruder is applied to grain for the first time, creating a new category of food-extruding machine operator.

Beat · 1935

The United Rubber, Cork, Linoleum and Plastic Workers of America (URW) is founded on September 12, 1935, in Akron, Ohio. The union organizes rubber-mill and extruding workers at Goodyear, Firestone, and other major plants, eventually winning wage increases, medical benefits, and double time for Sunday and holiday work. In 1940, the URW wins vacation days for the first time. The URW represents a large share of compacting and extruding machine operators in the rubber industry until its 1995 merger into the United Steelworkers.

Beat · 1968

Richard Morley and his team at Bedford Associates (later Modicon) introduce the first programmable logic controller, the Modicon 084, for General Motors. Within 15 years, PLCs are standard equipment on most large forming-machine lines in the US, replacing relay-ladder control panels. For forming-machine operators, the PLC transition means setting and checking numeric parameters rather than turning physical valves, and reading alarm codes rather than listening for mechanical sounds. The transition raises the basic literacy requirement and shifts where skill resides: from hands-on adjustment to pattern recognition in data.

Beat · 2016

The global extruded snack food market, which depends on forming-machine operators at every facility, reaches $50 billion in annual value. Food extrusion has expanded well beyond corn snacks and breakfast cereals to include pet food, baby food, textured vegetable protein (plant-based meat precursors), processed cheese, and confectionery. The food-extrusion strand of this occupation has grown substantially even as plastics extruding in commodity applications has contracted due to offshoring.

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, ONS ASHE figures (UK pay and jobs) 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.

How it began · 1904

In 1903, after a decade of experimentation financed by glass magnate Edward Libbey and executed with the help of engineers William Boch and C. William Schwenzfeier, a former child glassblower named Michael J. Owens completed the first commercially viable fully automatic bottle-making machine. Owens had entered the glass industry at age ten, learning to blow molten glass into molds by lung and skill in the dangerous, soot-heavy glasshouses of Wheeling, West Virginia. He understood better than anyone what it meant to do that work, and he set out to build a machine that would never tire. The Owens Automatic Rotary Bottle Machine, first offered to manufacturers in 1904, gathered molten glass by suction into a parison mold, then blew it into its final bottle shape at 240 units per minute per machine. In some factories, labor costs fell by 80 percent overnight. The skilled glassblowers did not simply vanish: a new class of worker appeared alongside the machines, someone who set the vacuum pressures, monitored the gob feeder, measured wall thickness in finished bottles, and adjusted the mold temperatures when product quality drifted. These were not glassblowers, nor were they the unskilled laborers who had carried coal. They were machine operators in the sense that would later be formalized by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The same logic was simultaneously unfolding in rubber, where screw extruders were displacing hand-calendaring in tire and hose factories, and in soap manufacturing, where the duplex plodder machine was forming and cutting bars that had previously required hand-pressing. By the 1930s, food extrusion arrived: General Mills pioneered extrusion for breakfast cereals, and pasta factories replaced hand-rolling with screw extruders producing continuous ropes of dough cut to shape. In each industry, one or two operators and a mechanic replaced dozens of craft workers, and a new occupation formed around the recurring need to set up the machine, monitor its output, and keep it running. The 2000 Standard Occupational Classification gave this cross-material grouping its first unified federal name.

Cited forecasts · present → 2035

Will AI replace extruding and forming 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
Target year 2035
+1.5%
BLS National Employment Matrix, 2025-35 cycle, line for SOC 51-9041 (Extruding, forming, pressing, and compacting machine setters, operators, and tenders): 58.3 thousand jobs in 2025, projected 59.2 thousand in 2035, a change of +0.9 thousand (+1.5%). Matrix employment counts all jobs in the occupation, including self-employed workers. 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)
0.93
probability
What this measures
Published appendix value for SOC 2010 51-9041 Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders: probability of computerisation 0.93, rank 584 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

Today, in this role

What's changing day to day for extruding and forming operators

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

AI is sitting alongside you here Monitor machine operations and observe lights and gauges…

to detect malfunctions.^[2]

Where your edge is

AI is sitting alongside you here Turn controls to adjust machine functions…

, such as regulating air pressure, creating vacuums, and adjusting coolant flow.^[2]

Where your edge is

AI is sitting alongside you here Clean dies, arbors, compression chambers, and molds…

, using swabs, sponges, or air hoses.^[2]

Where your edge is

Tools of the era

How has the work of extruding and forming operators changed since 1904?

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

Owens Automatic Rotary Bottle Machine and early screw extruders (hydraulic/pneumatic actuation)
Michael J. Owens's automatic bottle machine, commercially deployed from 1904, gathered molten glass by vacuum suction, formed a parison, then blew it into molds at hundreds of bottles per minute. It replaced armies of skilled glassblowers and their boy assistants and created a new worker: the forming-machine operator who set vacuum levels, monitored gob temperature, measured wall thickness, and adjusted mold cooling. Simultaneously, the first industrial screw extruders were applied to rubber compounds in the 1820s-1890s and by the early 20th century were standard equipment in tire and hose factories. Operators set barrel temperatures, die pressure, and take-off speeds. Both machine families operated on hydraulic or steam pressure with mechanical actuation; precision was achieved through operator judgment rather than instrumentation.
Effect on the work
The Owens machine reduced glass-bottling labor costs by up to 80% at adopting factories. Skilled glassblowers were largely displaced; machine operators earned substantially less but the new positions were numerically significant as glass-factory headcounts reorganized around the machines.
Thermoplastic screw extruders and twin-screw designs (Troester 1935, Colombo twin-screw 1930s, post-WWII polyethylene and PVC expansion)
In 1935, German engineer Paul Troester achieved the first successful thermoplastic extrusion in Hamburg, extruding PVC film through a single-screw machine. Roberto Colombo in Italy independently pioneered the twin-screw extruder in the 1930s, offering superior mixing for compounded polymers. World War II accelerated plastic extrusion for military applications (hydraulic tubing for aircraft, wire insulation), and the post-war polymer boom brought polyethylene (1940s), polypropylene (1950s), and PVC pipe and window profiles to mass production. US plastic extruder operators became a growth occupation through the 1950s and 1960s as packaging film, pipe, and profiles proliferated. Food extrusion also scaled: cooking extruders commercialized corn snacks in the 1940s and the global extruded snack market grew rapidly through the 1960s. Operators learned to set die profiles, barrel-zone temperatures, and screw speeds, and to perform die-change changeovers under tight production schedules.
Effect on the work
Each new plastic application created net operator positions: US plastics employment expanded continuously from the late 1940s through the 1970s, with forming-machine operators among the fastest-growing production operative categories.
PLC-assisted machine control and in-line quality gauges (first programmable logic controllers, 1968)
The first programmable logic controller (PLC), the Modicon 084, was introduced in 1968 for General Motors' Detroit-area assembly plants. PLC adoption in forming-machine environments through the 1970s and 1980s allowed temperature zones, screw speeds, and die pressures to be set digitally and held automatically rather than by manual valve adjustment. In-line gauging (laser micrometers measuring pipe or film thickness continuously) replaced the periodic manual caliper check. For the operator, this shifted the role from constant manual adjustment to setpoint programming and trend monitoring, raising the cognitive demand while reducing the physical. Changeover times fell as die dimensions and temperature profiles were stored and recalled as recipes. By the mid-1980s, most large-volume extruding lines in plastics and food were PLC-equipped; smaller forming shops (glass, ceramics, soap) lagged.
Statistical Process Control (SPC) and touchscreen HMI operator interfaces
The 1990s brought Statistical Process Control to the forming-machine floor: real-time control charts on line-side monitors showed operators whether dimensional variation was trending toward specification limits before defects occurred. Touchscreen Human-Machine Interfaces (HMIs) replaced ladder-of-switches panels, displaying all zone temperatures, pressures, and drive speeds on a single screen and logging production data automatically. The HMI shift raised the reading and basic computer-interaction requirement for entry-level operators noticeably. It also enabled remote monitoring: a shift supervisor could check a line's status from a laptop rather than walking the floor. By 2010, most new forming lines in the United States used standardized HMI platforms (Siemens, Allen-Bradley), and operators were expected to navigate menus, enter recipe parameters, and acknowledge alarms without a supervisor present.
Effect on the work
SPC and HMI adoption did not eliminate forming-machine operators but raised the floor on required capability. Older operators who had mastered manual valve-and-gauge methods retired or retrained; the replacement generation came in with better reading and computer skills but fewer hands-on troubleshooting instincts for mechanical failure modes.
AI-assisted quality vision systems and predictive-maintenance platforms (machine learning process monitoring)
Machine-vision cameras paired with deep-learning classifiers can now inspect forming-machine output at line speeds that human eyes cannot match: surface defects on extruded pipe, dimensional deviations in glass containers, and density variations in compacted tablets are flagged and rejected automatically. Predictive-maintenance platforms connect vibration sensors, temperature histories, and motor current readings to cloud dashboards that alert operators to likely bearing failures or heater-element degradation days before a breakdown. For the forming-machine operator, this is augmentation rather than replacement: the operator is relieved of the least-engaging inspection tasks and given more actionable information about the machine's health, but the physical presence, changeover judgment, and startup sequencing knowledge remain human. As of 2026, these systems are well-established in high-volume plastics and food lines and are beginning to reach mid-size glass and ceramics operations.

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Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders employment and pay by year

On record since1904

Latest US employment58,770 (May 2025)Source: BLS OEWS May 2025Official statisticReport an error

Latest US median pay$45,760 (May 2025)Source: BLS OEWS May 2025Official statisticReport an error

Outlook+1.5% by 2035Source: BLS Employment Projections 2025-35Official statisticReport an error

View all 27 years of cited US data, each linked to its source

Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders in the US: employment and pay by year, with sources
Year	US employment	Annual pay (median unless marked)	Source	Report
1920	45,000	n/a	Est., Illinois Glass Co. 1920 Catalog [1] Researched context	Report
1950	95,000	n/a	Est., IFT Food Technology Magazine [2] Researched context	Report
1980	120,000	n/a	Est., BLS [3] Researched context	Report
2000	75,000	$27,736	Est., Derived estimate anchored to FRED / BLS… (employment)[4] Researched contextBLS CPS 2000 (pay)[6] Researched context	Report
2003	73,990	$27,140	BLS OEWS May 2003 [5] Official statistic	Report
2004	73,970	$27,460	BLS OEWS May 2004 [5] Official statistic	Report
2005	80,420	$27,790	BLS OEWS May 2005 [5] Official statistic	Report
2006	81,000	$27,710	BLS OEWS May 2006 [5] Official statistic	Report
2007	88,600	$28,000	BLS OEWS May 2007 [5] Official statistic	Report
2008	85,130	$28,960	BLS OEWS May 2008 [5] Official statistic	Report
2009	72,770	$29,860	BLS OEWS May 2009 [5] Official statistic	Report
2010	65,100	$31,210	BLS OEWS May 2010 [5] Official statistic	Report
2011	66,330	$31,190	BLS OEWS May 2011 [5] Official statistic	Report
2012	68,080	$31,310	BLS OEWS May 2012 [5] Official statistic	Report
2013	69,740	$31,760	BLS OEWS May 2013 [5] Official statistic	Report
2014	67,490	$32,100	BLS OEWS May 2014 [5] Official statistic	Report
2015	71,430	$32,160	BLS OEWS May 2015 [5] Official statistic	Report
2016	71,260	$32,510	BLS OEWS May 2016 [5] Official statistic	Report
2017	76,120	$33,680	BLS OEWS May 2017 [5] Official statistic	Report
2018	72,870	$35,120	BLS OEWS May 2018 [5] Official statistic	Report
2019	71,850	$35,480	BLS OEWS May 2019 [5] Official statistic	Report
2020	63,730	$36,560	BLS OEWS May 2020 [5] Official statistic	Report
2021	56,570	$37,660	BLS OEWS May 2021 [5] Official statistic	Report
2022	58,740	$39,480	BLS OEWS May 2022 [5] Official statistic	Report
2023	57,080	$42,670	BLS OEWS May 2023 [5] Official statistic	Report
2024	57,310	$45,130	BLS OEWS May 2024 [5] Official statistic	Report
2025	58,770	$45,760	BLS OEWS May 2025 [5] Official statistic	Report

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<p style="font-size:13px;margin:4px 0 0"><a href="https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/51-9041">Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders: jobs and pay since 1920</a>, from Future History</p>

See all roles in Manufacturing

Owens Automatic Rotary Bottle Machine and early screw extruders (hydraulic/pneumatic actuation) (1904 to 1940)

Thermoplastic screw extruders and twin-screw designs (Troester 1935, Colombo twin-screw 1930s, post-WWII polyethylene and PVC expansion) (1935 to 1970)

PLC-assisted machine control and in-line quality gauges (first programmable logic controllers, 1968) (1965 to 1990)

Statistical Process Control (SPC) and touchscreen HMI operator interfaces (1990 to 2015)

AI-assisted quality vision systems and predictive-maintenance platforms (machine learning process monitoring) (2015 to present)

Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders employment and pay by year

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