Industry group, 3250A1
Chemical Manufacturing (3251, 3252, 3253, and 3259 only)
364,650 people work in this industry in the US, at mean pay of $85,160 a year (BLS, May 2025). 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: 146 million hours at what they cost. Not a forecast of savings.
- 39%
- 10%
- 51%
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
What each choice means: , , , , . Every pace starts from .
How far this has come
With GPT-4, measured in March 2023, 0% of this industry's paid hours were within reach at . With Claude 3.7 Sonnet, measured in February 2025, 1%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 17%. Today's estimate: 20%.
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 80% of the people.
| People | Pay here | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chemical Equipment Operators and Tenders | 71,950 | 18% | 27 million | $62K |
| First-Line Supervisors of Production and Operating Workers | 18,550 | 32% | 12 million | $87K |
| Shipping, Receiving, and Inventory Clerks | 6,530 | 53% | 7.2 million | $49K |
| Chemical Plant and System Operators | 11,340 | 22% | 5.2 million | $82K |
| Production, Planning, and Expediting Clerks | 3,900 | 63% | 5.1 million | $72K |
| Customer Service Representatives | 3,660 | 64% | 4.9 million | $59K |
| Inspectors, Testers, Sorters, Samplers, and Weighers | 9,420 | 24% | 4.7 million | $51K |
| Industrial Production Managers | 9,340 | 24% | 4.7 million | $140K |
| Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products | 5,960 | 36% | 4.4 million | $97K |
| Industrial Machinery Mechanics | 12,050 | 15% | 3.9 million | $77K |
| General and Operations Managers | 7,870 | 23% | 3.7 million | $159K |
| Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks | 2,200 | 78% | 3.6 million | $56K |
People: BLS counts for this industry, May 2025. Pay here: the median paid for the job in this industry, else its mean, else the national median. 178 smaller jobs (73,230 people) count in every total but are not listed. Task data covers 98% of the industry'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 industry, on the chosen pace and reliability.
- Estimate materials required for production and manufacturing of products.Chemical Equipment Operators and Tenders6.6 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Adjust controls to regulate temperature, pressure, feed, or flow of liquids or gases and times of prescribed reactions, according to knowledge of equipment and processes.Chemical Equipment Operators and Tenders6.3 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Monitor gauges, recording instruments, flowmeters, or products to ensure that specified conditions are maintained.Chemical Equipment Operators and Tenders4.8 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Develop, improve, or customize products, equipment, formulas, processes, or analytical methods.Chemists4.5 million hours85% of the task within reach
- Plan and establish work schedules, assignments, and production sequences to meet production goals.First-Line Supervisors of Production and Operating Workers4.4 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Record operational data, such as temperatures, pressures, ingredients used, processing times, or test results.Chemical Equipment Operators and Tenders4.3 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Plan and develop new products and production processes.First-Line Supervisors of Production and Operating Workers3.9 million hours67% of the task within reach
- Develop or implement production tracking or quality control systems, analyzing production, quality control, maintenance, or other operational reports to detect production problems.Industrial Production Managers3.1 million hours92% of the task within reach
- Plan and establish sequence of operations to fabricate and assemble parts or products and to promote efficient utilization.Industrial Engineers3.1 million hours99% of the task within reach
- Read and analyze charts, work orders, production schedules, and other records and reports to determine production requirements and to evaluate current production estimates and outputs.First-Line Supervisors of Production and Operating Workers3 million hours100% of the task within reach
Scan a typical company in this industry
The industry's largest jobs, in the proportions BLS counts across the whole industry, at the pay it pays, run through the company scan. A starting point before you have a roster, or a benchmark for the one you have.
Next to this industry
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 industry; each job's tasks and their lengths give its share within reach at a date; the industry'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