Plastics Factory Worker

A plastics factory worker operates and tends machinery on production lines in manufacturing facilities, processing raw plastic materials into finished products or components. They monitor equipment performance, feed materials into machines, remove finished goods, and perform quality checks and basic maintenance tasks to ensure continuous production output.

Feed raw plastic pellets, powders, or pre-formed materials into injection moulding, extrusion, or blow-moulding machines. Monitor temperature, pressure, and speed settings on plastics processing equipment and adjust controls to maintain product specifications. Remove finished plastic products, components, or sheet material from machines and stack or palletise items for storage or dispatch. Inspect moulded or extruded products for visual defects, dimensional accuracy, and surface quality against production specifications. Perform routine cleaning and maintenance of machine hoppers, nozzles, dies, and cooling systems using compressed air and hand tools. Operate auxiliary equipment such as granulators, grinders, or material dryers to prepare or recycle plastic waste. Load raw materials into storage bins and manage inventory of plastic pellets or powders on the production floor. Record production quantities, equipment operating times, and quality issues in shift logs or digital production systems.

The standard entry pathway requires a Certificate I or compulsory secondary education (ABS skill level 5). Specific qualification requirements vary by employer and state. Some employers may accept equivalent experience. Check yourcareer.gov.au for available courses and dewr.gov.au/skills-reform/free-tafe for subsidised training options.

The work is repetitive and physically demanding with limited room to move up without getting into supervision or technical roles. You'll be standing for long shifts in hot, noisy factory conditions handling heavy materials. Pay caps out quickly unless you move into maintenance or management, so this is genuinely a dead-end unless you retrain.

Some work exists in regional manufacturing hubs, but these roles don't work remotely. Australian plastics manufacturing concentrates in established industrial zones where transport links are good.

Published for ANZSCO unit group 8392, the wider group this job sits in, not for this job on its own.

This is the median for full-time employees who are not managers and are paid at the adult rate, before tax and salary sacrifice. It is a guide to what the work pays, not a wage rate.

Source: ABS Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours, May 2025, customised report.

• Adaptability and Flexibilitycore
• Attention to Detailcore
• Basic Arithmetic and Numerical Accuracycore
• Incident Reportingcore
• Inventory Trackingcore
• Multitaskingcore
• Policy and Procedure Adherencecore
• Problem Solvingcore
• Quality Assurance and Checkingcore
• Risk Identificationcore
• Team Collaborationcore
• Time Managementcore
• Active Listening
• Calculate materials to build equipment
• Clean building floors
• Clean equipment
• Clean surfaces
• Cleaning products
• Continuous Learning and Upskilling
• Goods Receipt Processing
• Process Improvement Identification
• Regulatory and Legislative Awareness
• Stock Counting and Stocktake
• Verbal Communication
• Workload Self-Management

• ABS OSCA 2024, occupation definition and task statements
• ABS Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours, May 2025, customised report.
• ABS, 2021 Census of Population and Housing based on usual place of residence (Custom Report). OSCA Experimental Estimates.

Role data is drawn from official Australian Government sources, and each figure names where it comes from. Where a role is not in the ABS classification, the page shows no government figures for it. Data may not reflect every local variation.

Where our numbers come from.

What Plastics Factory Worker move into, from ten years of tax records.

Last updated: 30 October 2026