Subsector, 323
Printing and Related Support Activities
355,560 people work in this industry in the US, at mean pay of $55,810 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: 214 million hours at what they cost. Not a forecast of savings.
- 41%
- 6%
- 53%
of the paid hours are within reach now in tasks people already bring to Claude. Another 22% is within reach in tasks not yet seen there.
Across the US: 24% within reach now and 39% 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, 3%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 27%. Today's estimate: 29%.
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 91% of the people.
| People | Pay here | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Printing Press Operators | 88,160 | 24% | 44 million | $46K |
| Customer Service Representatives | 15,920 | 67% | 22 million | $47K |
| Prepress Technicians and Workers | 14,090 | 71% | 21 million | $48K |
| Graphic Designers | 15,120 | 51% | 16 million | $47K |
| Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products | 14,570 | 44% | 13 million | $61K |
| First-Line Supervisors of Production and Operating Workers | 15,950 | 35% | 11 million | $65K |
| Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks | 6,310 | 76% | 10 million | $49K |
| Office Clerks, General | 7,030 | 58% | 8.5 million | $42K |
| Shipping, Receiving, and Inventory Clerks | 9,370 | 43% | 8.4 million | $43K |
| General and Operations Managers | 12,500 | 19% | 4.8 million | $97K |
| Sales Representatives of Services, Except Advertising, Insurance, Financial Services, and Travel | 2,680 | 69% | 3.8 million | $61K |
| First-Line Supervisors of Office and Administrative Support Workers | 3,740 | 47% | 3.6 million | $63K |
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. 127 smaller jobs (31,360 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.
- Enter, position, and alter text size, using computers, to make up and arrange pages so that printed materials can be produced.Prepress Technicians and Workers8.7 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Input production job settings into workstation terminals that control automated printing systems.Printing Press Operators8.1 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Examine job orders to determine quantities to be printed, stock specifications, colors, or special printing instructions.Printing Press Operators7.7 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Monitor automated press operation systems and respond to fault, error, or alert messages.Printing Press Operators7.3 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Create designs, concepts, and sample layouts, based on knowledge of layout principles and esthetic design concepts.Graphic Designers5.4 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Develop graphics and layouts for product illustrations, company logos, and Web sites.Graphic Designers5.4 million hours99% of the task within reach
- Plan and develop new products and production processes.First-Line Supervisors of Production and Operating Workers4.8 million hours96% of the task within reach
- Generate prepress proofs in digital or other format to approximate the appearance of the final printed piece.Prepress Technicians and Workers4.7 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Proofread and perform quality control of text and images.Prepress Technicians and Workers4.4 million hours100% of the task within reach
- Adjust digital files to alter print elements, such as fonts, graphics, or color separations.Printing Press Operators4.2 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.
Inside 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