Metro area, West Virginia
Parkersburg-Vienna, WV
36,280 people work in this area, at mean pay of $54,630 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.
of the paid hours. Estimate.
a year: 13 million hours at what they cost. Not a forecast of savings.
- 33%
- 18%
- 49%
of the paid hours are within reach now in tasks people already bring to Claude. Another 18% 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
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%.
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 64% of the people.
| People | Pay here | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks | 400 | 78% | 645,633 | $45K |
| Retail Salespersons | 1,580 | 19% | 637,562 | $28K |
| Registered Nurses | 910 | 28% | 526,200 | $79K |
| Customer Service Representatives | 330 | 64% | 442,042 | $37K |
| Office Clerks, General | 390 | 54% | 440,482 | $33K |
| Receptionists and Information Clerks | 330 | 59% | 403,603 | $32K |
| Cashiers | 950 | 19% | 365,560 | $27K |
| Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive | 410 | 43% | 363,294 | $39K |
| Human Resources Specialists | 440 | 39% | 355,099 | $95K |
| General and Operations Managers | 740 | 23% | 350,940 | $82K |
| First-Line Supervisors of Food Preparation and Serving Workers | 400 | 40% | 336,129 | $30K |
| Stockers and Order Fillers | 830 | 19% | 328,016 | $33K |
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. 153 smaller jobs (10,800 people) count in every total but are not listed. Task data covers 83% 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.
- Maintain knowledge of current sales and promotions, policies regarding payment and exchanges, and security practices.Retail Salespersons191,449 hours50% of the task within reach
- Perform administrative or managerial functions, such as taking responsibility for a unit's staff, budget, planning, or long-range goals.Registered Nurses152,468 hours60% of the task within reach
- 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 Auditors147,210 hours98% of the task within reach
- Keep periodic balance sheets of amounts and numbers of transactions.Cashiers139,683 hours100% of the task within reach
- Operate computers programmed with accounting software to record, store, and analyze information.Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks130,083 hours100% of the task within reach
- Attend professional meetings, educational conferences, or teacher training workshops to improve professional competence.Substitute Teachers, Short-Term111,784 hours100% of the task within reach
- Prepare, edit, or review legal documents, including legislation, briefs, pleadings, appeals, wills, contracts, and real estate closing statements.Paralegals and Legal Assistants111,361 hours99% of the task within reach
- Maintain accurate, detailed reports and records.Registered Nurses104,369 hours100% of the task within reach
- Perform administrative support tasks, such as proofreading, transcribing handwritten information, or operating calculators or computers to work with pay records, invoices, balance sheets, or other documents.Receptionists and Information Clerks102,246 hours100% of the task within reach
- Maintain records related to sales.Retail Salespersons101,977 hours100% of the task within reach
Other areas in West Virginia
Within reach now and by the end of 2028, long-run pace, four in five.
- Northern West Virginia nonmetropolitan area145,750 people21% now, 32% by 2028
- Huntington-Ashland, WV-KY-OH140,740 people23% now, 34% by 2028
- Charleston, WV103,450 people23% now, 36% by 2028
- Southern West Virginia nonmetropolitan area75,980 people21% now, 30% by 2028
- Morgantown, WV67,370 people23% now, 37% by 2028
- Wheeling, WV-OH58,130 people22% now, 31% by 2028
- Beckley, WV43,080 people22% now, 31% by 2028
- Weirton-Steubenville, WV-OH36,220 people21% now, 30% by 2028
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