Industry group, 5131
Newspaper, Periodical, Book, and Directory Publishers
251,110 people work in this industry in the US, at mean pay of $88,710 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: 173 million hours at what they cost. Not a forecast of savings.
- 70%
- 17%
- 13%
of the paid hours are within reach now in tasks people already bring to Claude. Another 24% 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, 27%. Today's estimate: 34%.
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 84% of the people.
| People | Pay here | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Editors | 33,490 | 46% | 32 million | $74K |
| Advertising Sales Agents | 14,720 | 54% | 16 million | $52K |
| News Analysts, Reporters, and Journalists | 15,990 | 36% | 12 million | $53K |
| Graphic Designers | 8,870 | 51% | 9.5 million | $51K |
| Customer Service Representatives | 6,830 | 64% | 9.1 million | $48K |
| Sales Representatives of Services, Except Advertising, Insurance, Financial Services, and Travel | 8,990 | 43% | 8 million | $70K |
| Office Clerks, General | 5,910 | 54% | 6.7 million | $39K |
| Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks | 3,970 | 78% | 6.4 million | $46K |
| General and Operations Managers | 11,080 | 23% | 5.3 million | $129K |
| Prepress Technicians and Workers | 2,440 | 71% | 3.6 million | $49K |
| Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products | 4,220 | 36% | 3.1 million | $70K |
| Sales Managers | 4,430 | 28% | 2.6 million | $150K |
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. 113 smaller jobs (39,450 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.
- Oversee publication production, including artwork, layout, computer typesetting, and printing, ensuring adherence to deadlines and budget requirements.Editors9.8 million hours99% of the task within reach
- Write text, such as headlines, stories, articles, editorials, or newsletters.Editors6.8 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Plan the contents of publications according to the publication's style, editorial policy, and publishing requirements.Editors6.7 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Collect and analyze data on customer demographics, preferences, needs, and buying habits to identify potential markets and factors affecting product demand.Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists6.6 million hours90% of the task within reach
- Read, evaluate and edit manuscripts or other materials submitted for publication, and confer with authors regarding changes in content, style or organization, or publication.Editors5.5 million hours95% of the task within reach
- Prepare, rewrite and edit copy to improve readability, or supervise others who do this work.Editors5.4 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Identify new advertising markets, and propose products to serve them.Advertising Sales Agents4.9 million hours99% of the task within reach
- Monitor news-gathering operations to ensure utilization of all news sources, such as press releases, telephone contacts, radio, television, wire services, and other reporters.Editors4.3 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Maintain assigned account bases while developing new accounts.Advertising Sales Agents4.2 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Develop sales presentations or proposals to explain service specifications.Sales Representatives of Services, Except Advertising, Insurance, Financial Services, and Travel3.8 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