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Wrist-Finger Speed

Ability · O*NET work requirement

The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.

In the O*NET occupational database, Wrist-Finger Speed is an ability that work requires. O*NET rates how important it is (1–5) and what level of it a job needs (0–7) for every U.S. occupation. It is rated as important (3 or higher) in 10 of 894 occupations.

Breadth here means how widely O*NET rates this ability as important across occupations — not that it is rare, high-paying, or currently in employer demand.

Occupations that rely most on Wrist-Finger Speed

Ranked by O*NET importance to the occupation (1–5). Bars are sized against the 1–5 scale; the level column is what depth of the ability the job needs (0–7).

Occupation Importance Score Level
Manufactured Building and Mobile Home Installers 3.4 3.4
Court Reporters and Simultaneous Captioners 3.1 2.8
Data Entry Keyers 3.1 3.6
Word Processors and Typists 3.1 3.9
Emergency Medicine Physicians 3.0 3.1
Farm Equipment Mechanics and Service Technicians 3.0 2.8
Grinding, Lapping, Polishing, and Buffing Machine Tool Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic 3.0 2.6
Ophthalmic Laboratory Technicians 3.0 2.9
Surgical Assistants 3.0 2.8
Textile Winding, Twisting, and Drawing Out Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders 3.0 3.0
Computer Numerically Controlled Tool Operators 2.9 2.9
Cutting and Slicing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders 2.9 2.8
Dentists, General 2.9 2.9
Excavating and Loading Machine and Dragline Operators, Surface Mining 2.9 2.9
Industrial Machinery Mechanics 2.9 3.0
Mobile Heavy Equipment Mechanics, Except Engines 2.9 3.0
Model Makers, Metal and Plastic 2.9 2.6
Nuclear Technicians 2.9 2.6
Rolling Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic 2.9 2.9
Roof Bolters, Mining 2.9 2.8
Service Unit Operators, Oil and Gas 2.9 2.4
Adhesive Bonding Machine Operators and Tenders 2.8 2.4
Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers 2.8 2.8
Automotive Service Technicians and Mechanics 2.8 2.6
Butchers and Meat Cutters 2.8 2.3
Carpenters 2.8 2.6
Chemical Plant and System Operators 2.8 2.3
Court, Municipal, and License Clerks 2.8 2.3
Derrick Operators, Oil and Gas 2.8 2.6
Electric Motor, Power Tool, and Related Repairers 2.8 2.8
Electricians 2.8 1.9
Fallers 2.8 2.6
Fishing and Hunting Workers 2.8 2.8
Floor Sanders and Finishers 2.8 2.8
Furniture Finishers 2.8 2.5
Glass Blowers, Molders, Benders, and Finishers 2.8 2.6
Grinding and Polishing Workers, Hand 2.8 2.3
Helpers--Brickmasons, Blockmasons, Stonemasons, and Tile and Marble Setters 2.8 2.8
Locomotive Engineers 2.8 2.5
Machine Feeders and Offbearers 2.8 2.3

How AI is used by roles that need Wrist-Finger Speed

This ability is not itself "being automated" — but we can look at the roles for which O*NET rates it important and ask how those people actually use AI. This rolls the Anthropic Economic Index per-role signal up across those roles (importance-weighted). 30.0% of the 10 roles where this is important carry observed AI-usage data (3 roles).

Across those roles, 32.3% of AI conversations are people working with AI and 60.9% hand a task to AI , with an average autonomy of 2.75 / 5.

Collaboration pattern Share What it means
directive 54.5% AI does it; you give the instruction
task iteration 24.5% you and AI go back and forth
validation 6.9% you do it; AI checks your work
feedback loop 6.4% AI does it, then adjusts from your feedback
learning 0.9% you ask AI to explain or teach

Roles behind this signal

The roles where this ability is most important and that also have the most AEI data. "Works with AI" is the role's share of conversations that augment rather than automate.

Occupation Importance Works with AI Autonomy
Word Processors and Typists 3.1 38.4% 3.0/5
Data Entry Keyers 3.1 26.2% 2.5/5
Farm Equipment Mechanics and Service Technicians 3.0

Source: Anthropic Economic Index (2026-01-15-v4-plus-2025-03-27-v2) over a sample of Claude.ai Free and Pro conversations — not all AI tools and not the whole workforce. Shares are of observed conversations, weighted by how important this ability is to each role; some conversations are left unclassified by Anthropic's taxonomy, so shares need not sum to 100.

Industries that concentrate this

Where Wrist-Finger Speed matters most across the economy. Employment reach is the share of an industry's workers in occupations that significantly rely on Wrist-Finger Speed (O*NET importance ≥ 3 of 5). Concentration compares that reach to the national average industry, so a value above 1× means the requirement is more pervasive here than across the economy as a whole.

Nationally, about 0.2% of workers are in occupations that significantly rely on Wrist-Finger Speed (measured across 49 industries).

Sectors with the most such workers

Sector Workers Employment reach
Manufacturing 104,350 0.8%
Health Care and Social Assistance 75,530 0.3%
Wholesale Trade 38,710 0.6%
Administrative and Support and Waste Management and Remediation Services 32,270 0.4%
Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services 26,170 0.2%
Educational Services 21,570 0.2%
Retail Trade 12,320 0.1%
Finance and Insurance 9,410 0.2%
Information 6,890 0.2%
Transportation and Warehousing 6,330 0.1%
Management of Companies and Enterprises 5,800 0.2%
Other Services (except Public Administration) 5,320 0.1%

Industries where it is most concentrated

Industry Level Concentration Employment reach
Farm and Garden Machinery and Equipment Merchant Wholesalers National industry 107× 21.4%
Machine Shops National industry 12.5× 2.5%
Manufacturing Sector 0.8%
Wholesale Trade Sector 0.6%
Temporary Help Services National industry 2.5× 0.5%
Administrative and Support and Waste Management and Remediation Services Sector 0.4%
Health Care and Social Assistance Sector 1.5× 0.3%
Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services Sector 0.2%
Educational Services Sector 0.2%
Finance and Insurance Sector 0.2%
Information Sector 0.2%
Management of Companies and Enterprises Sector 0.2%

Reach is a measure of how widespread a requirement is across an industry's workforce, not how intensively any individual uses it. Sector worker counts come from BLS OEWS employment; the significance threshold and tool use come from O*NET. Industries shown by concentration are filtered to a real worker base so a tiny specialty cannot top the list on rounding.

Capabilities required by many of the same occupations — a measure of which skills, knowledge and abilities tend to travel together, not a judgment of similarity.

Capability Type Shared occupations
Speed of Limb Movement Ability 1
Reaction Time Ability 6
Rate Control Ability 4
Auditory Attention Ability 5
Hearing Sensitivity Ability 3
Response Orientation Ability 2
Visual Color Discrimination Ability 6
Depth Perception Ability 3
Memorization Ability 2
Static Strength Ability 5
Finger Dexterity Ability 10
Spatial Orientation Ability 1

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

Cite this page
Plain

Singulariki. "Wrist-Finger Speed." Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Built from O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; Census NAICS 2022; Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27). Accessed June 7, 2026. https://singulariki.com/abilities/wrist-finger-speed

APA

Singulariki. (2026). Wrist-Finger Speed. Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Retrieved June 7, 2026, from https://singulariki.com/abilities/wrist-finger-speed

BibTeX
@misc{singulariki-wrist-finger-speed,
  title  = {Wrist-Finger Speed},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; Census NAICS 2022; Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27). Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/abilities/wrist-finger-speed}
}

Citations name the underlying public dataset releases — they reflect what this page is built from, not just the URL.