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STRATUSWORKFORCE SCAN
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Metro area, California

El Centro, CA

65,430 people work in this area, at mean pay of $61,630 a year (BLS, May 2025), in every industry. What follows is how much of their working time the best AI models could finish, when, and in which jobs and tasks. Estimates.

now
20%

of the paid hours. Estimate.

$1.0B

a year: 24 million hours at what they cost. Not a forecast of savings.

Kinds of work
  • 29%
  • 19%
  • 51%
4%

of the paid hours are within reach now in tasks people already bring to Claude. Another 16% is within reach in tasks not yet seen there.

Across the US: 22% within reach now and 37% by the end of 2028, on the long-run pace at four in five.

Share of the paid hours within reach, now to 2030

0%25%50%75%100%2027202820292030NowDesk work: 29% of the time
Chosen to Ceiling: the share
DateNow
NowEnd of 2030

What each choice means: , , , , . Every pace starts from .

How far this has come

With GPT-4, measured in March 2023, 0% of this area's paid hours were within reach at . With Claude 3.7 Sonnet, measured in February 2025, 2%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 18%. Today's estimate: 20%.

0%10%20%30%2023202420252026GPT-4, March 2023: 0% within reachGPT-4 Turbo (Nov 2023), November 2023: 0% within reachGPT-4o, May 2024: 0% within reachClaude 3.5 Sonnet (June 2024), June 2024: 0% within reacho1-preview, September 2024: 0% within reachClaude 3.5 Sonnet (Oct 2024), October 2024: 0% within reacho1, December 2024: 1% within reachClaude 3.7 Sonnet, February 2025: 2% within reacho3, April 2025: 6% within reachGPT-5, August 2025: 7% within reachGemini 3 Pro, November 2025: 10% within reachClaude Opus 4.5, November 2025: 10% within reachGPT-5.2, December 2025: 11% within reachClaude Opus 4.6, February 2026: 11% within reachClaude Mythos Preview (early), April 2026: 18% within reachToday (estimate), September 2026: 20% within reach
Each step is a new best model measured by METR, four in five; the dashed end is today's estimate. Point at a dot for the model.

A backcast: today's task data with the best model METR had measured by each date. It shows how fast the models have moved, not what anyone forecast at the time.

Where the hours are

Jobs by hours within reach now. The 40 largest jobs hold 66% of the people.

PeoplePay here
Office Clerks, General1,10054%1.2 million$45K
Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks53078%855,463$48K
Personal Care Aides4,01010%800,717$34K
Retail Salespersons1,90019%766,688$35K
Cashiers1,96019%754,208$35K
Compliance Officers84037%639,478$107K
Home Health Aides4,0107%608,878$34K
Detectives and Criminal Investigators77035%554,157$124K
Registered Nurses95028%549,329$103K
Stockers and Order Fillers1,36019%537,472$39K
Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education86030%533,063$100K
Secondary School Teachers, Except Special and Career/Technical Education78032%520,791$99K

People: BLS counts for this area, May 2025. Pay here: the median paid for the job in this area, else its mean, else the national median. 217 smaller jobs (19,440 people) count in every total but are not listed. Task data covers 88% of the area's people; the rest are in BLS "all other" groups with no task list, or in counts BLS does not publish.

The tasks with the most hours within reach by the end of 2028

Across the whole area, on the chosen pace and reliability.

  1. Verify that all firm and regulatory policies and procedures have been documented, implemented, and communicated.Compliance Officers
    491,892 hours94% of the task within reach
  2. Prepare reports that detail investigation findings.Detectives and Criminal Investigators
    364,838 hours100% of the task within reach
  3. Maintain records of patient care, condition, progress, or problems to report and discuss observations with supervisor or case manager.Home Health Aides
    334,141 hours70% of the task within reach
  4. Provide clients with communication assistance, typing their correspondence or obtaining information for them.Personal Care Aides
    309,035 hours70% of the task within reach
  5. Keep periodic balance sheets of amounts and numbers of transactions.Cashiers
    288,189 hours100% of the task within reach
  6. Prepare and maintain records of client progress and services performed, reporting changes in client condition to manager or supervisor.Personal Care Aides
    284,863 hours70% of the task within reach
  7. Plan, purchase, prepare, or serve meals to patients or other family members, according to prescribed diets.Home Health Aides
    276,264 hours20% of the task within reach
  8. Compute, record, and proofread data and other information, such as records or reports.Office Clerks, General
    275,521 hours100% of the task within reach
  9. Maintain knowledge of current sales and promotions, policies regarding payment and exchanges, and security practices.Retail Salespersons
    230,224 hours50% of the task within reach
  10. Provide assistance to internal or external auditors in compliance reviews.Compliance Officers
    227,127 hours100% of the task within reach

Other areas in California

Within reach now and by the end of 2028, long-run pace, four in five.

How it is built: BLS counts the people in each job in this area; each job's tasks and their lengths give its share within reach at a date; the area's share is those shares weighted by people. Value is pay times 1.43 for benefits and payroll costs. Seen in Claude use splits today's share by whether Anthropic saw people bring each task to Claude in 2025; other AI tools are not counted. How it works