Gem lab assistant
| Highest | $4,000 / mo · Switzerland |
|---|---|
| Experience | 2–4 yrs |
| Degree | Required |
| First paycheck | 7 instructional weeks (GIA Graduate Diamonds) |
Pay in the destination countries
Monthly, in US dollars. Each country is an Imora admission package — open one for that route's fees, language requirement and deadline.
| Country | Monthly |
|---|---|
| SwitzerlandIELTS 6.5 · CHF 0.9–8k | $4,000max |
| ItalyIELTS 6.0 · €0–4k | $3,850 |
| NorwayIELTS 6.0–6.5 · NOK 130–260k | $3,850 |
| United StatesTOEFL 80–100 · $10–70k | $3,800 |
| DenmarkIELTS 6.5 · DKK 45–135k | $3,750 |
| AustriaGerman A2–C1 · €726 | $3,750 |
What does the day look like?
You work in a dust-free lab under standardized D65 daylight lighting. The day starts with unpacking client parcels, checking security barcodes, and weighing loose stones on a Mettler Toledo micro-balance accurate to 0.0001 carat. You clean stones in an ultrasonic cleaner and alcohol/acetone bath, load them into a Sarine DiaMension HD or OGI scanner to measure table percentage, pavilion depth, crown angle, and girdle thickness, run batches through a GIA iD100, De Beers DiamondCheck, or GL Gem Spectrometer to separate natural diamonds from CVD/HPHT synthetics, photograph inclusions under a Leica or Nikon stereomicroscope with darkfield illumination, and log weights and measurements in the LIMS.
About 85% of the day is cleaning, weighing, feeding automated trays, and data entry, with 15% spent at the microscope or on photomicrography. The standard week is 37.5 to 40 hours. Large centers in Mumbai, Surat, Antwerp, Carlsbad, and Dubai run fixed double shifts, 06:00 to 14:30 and 14:30 to 23:00. Night work and on-call duties are rare. The job is mostly repetitive preparation and logging, not judging museum-grade stones.
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