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STRATUSWORKFORCE SCAN
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Nonmetro area, Colorado

Northwest Colorado nonmetropolitan area

132,270 people work in this area, at mean pay of $67,230 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
22%

of the paid hours. Estimate.

$2.4B

a year: 54 million hours at what they cost. Not a forecast of savings.

Kinds of work
  • 35%
  • 16%
  • 49%
4%

of the paid hours are within reach now in tasks people already bring to Claude. Another 17% 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: 35% 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, 19%. Today's estimate: 22%.

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: 12% within reachClaude Mythos Preview (early), April 2026: 19% within reachToday (estimate), September 2026: 22% 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 55% of the people.

PeoplePay here
Office Clerks, General1,97054%2.2 million$53K
Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks1,35078%2.2 million$53K
Retail Salespersons4,60019%1.9 million$41K
Customer Service Representatives1,21064%1.6 million$48K
First-Line Supervisors of Food Preparation and Serving Workers1,72040%1.4 million$54K
Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive1,60043%1.4 million$49K
Self-Enrichment Teachers1,10054%1.2 million$47K
Counter and Rental Clerks1,10053%1.2 million$45K
First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers2,07028%1.2 million$60K
General and Operations Managers2,54023%1.2 million$122K
Cashiers3,12019%1.2 million$38K
Registered Nurses1,93028%1.1 million$104K

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. 313 smaller jobs (53,760 people) count in every total but are not listed. Task data covers 90% 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. Maintain knowledge of current sales and promotions, policies regarding payment and exchanges, and security practices.Retail Salespersons
    557,384 hours50% of the task within reach
  2. Develop sales presentations or proposals to explain service specifications.Sales Representatives of Services, Except Advertising, Insurance, Financial Services, and Travel
    508,313 hours100% of the task within reach
  3. Plan, organize, and control the operations of a cocktail lounge or bar.Bartenders
    496,060 hours50% of the task within reach
  4. Compute, record, and proofread data and other information, such as records or reports.Office Clerks, General
    493,433 hours100% of the task within reach
  5. Keep periodic balance sheets of amounts and numbers of transactions.Cashiers
    458,750 hours100% of the task within reach
  6. Operate computers programmed with accounting software to record, store, and analyze information.Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks
    439,031 hours100% of the task within reach
  7. Prepare, examine, or analyze accounting records, financial statements, or other financial reports to assess accuracy, completeness, and conformance to reporting and procedural standards.Accountants and Auditors
    433,601 hours98% of the task within reach
  8. Collect and analyze data on customer demographics, preferences, needs, and buying habits to identify potential markets and factors affecting product demand.A job in this area
    421,629 hours90% of the task within reach
  9. Establish credit policies and operating procedures.First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers
    404,199 hours100% of the task within reach
  10. Coordinate conferences, meetings, or special events, such as luncheons or graduation ceremonies.Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive
    350,422 hours53% of the task within reach

Other areas in Colorado

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