Couriers and Messengers
Pick up and deliver messages, documents, packages, and other items between offices or departments within an establishment or directly to other business concerns, traveling by foot, bicycle, motorcycle, automobile, or public conveyance.
68,640 people do this job in the US. $39,200 a year.
of the working time. Estimate.
- 7%
- 0%
- 93%
Measured, from Anthropic's usage data (2025). Counts help on part of a task.
On the chosen pace and reliability. Estimate.
Share of the working time within reach, now to 2030
What each choice means: , , , , . Every pace starts from .
At this date and pace, models finish tasks up to 4.4 h long four times in five.
How far this has come
With GPT-4, measured in March 2023, 0% of this job's working time was within reach at . With Claude 3.7 Sonnet, measured in February 2025, 4%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 7%. Today's estimate: 7%.
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.
The tasks
Sorted by . 16 tasks from .
| Task | Kind | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deliver and pick up medical records, lab specimens, and medications to and from hospitals and other medical facilities.Done daily by most who do it. | 14% | 38 min17 min to 1.7 h | Stays with people | |
| Walk, ride bicycles, drive vehicles, or use public conveyances to reach destinations to deliver messages or materials.Done daily by most who do it. | 13% | 25 min8 min to 1.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Load vehicles with listed goods, ensuring goods are loaded correctly and taking precautions with hazardous goods.Done daily by most who do it. | 9% | 25 min13 min to 50 min | Stays with people | |
| Unload and sort items collected along delivery routes.Done daily by most who do it. | 8% | 25 min13 min to 1.1 h | Stays with people | |
| Plan and follow the most efficient routes for delivering goods.Done daily by most who do it. AI observed on this task. | 7% | 17 min8 min to 33 min | Stays with people | |
| Deliver messages and items, such as newspapers, documents, and packages, between establishment departments and to other establishments and private homes.Done daily by most who do it. | 7% | 21 min8 min to 50 min | Stays with people | |
| Unload goods from large trucks, and load them onto smaller delivery vehicles.Done daily by most who do it. | 7% | 38 min17 min to 1.7 h | Stays with people | |
| Sort items to be delivered according to the delivery route.Done daily by most who do it. | 7% | 21 min8 min to 50 min | Stays with people | |
| Open, sort, and distribute incoming mail.Done daily by most who do it. | 6% | 38 min13 min to 1.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Perform general office or clerical work, such as filing materials, operating duplicating machines, or running errands.Done daily by most who do it. | 6% | 25 min8 min to 50 min | Stays with people | |
| Perform routine maintenance on delivery vehicles, such as monitoring fluid levels and replenishing fuel.Done daily by most who do it. | 4% | 17 min8 min to 38 min | Stays with people | |
| Record information, such as items received and delivered and recipients' responses to messages.Done daily by most who do it. | 4% | 10 min4 min to 21 min | 100%Half by now |
Within reach, per task: the share of the task's time whose instances are short enough for a model to finish at the chosen date, pace and reliability. Half by: the date half of that time comes within reach.
Jobs that share skills with this one
From O*NET's related occupations. Within reach now and by the end of 2028, long-run pace, four in five.
- Postal Service Mail Carriers4% now, 4% by 2028
- Light Truck Drivers12% now, 12% by 2028
- Mail Clerks and Mail Machine Operators, Except Postal Service7% now, 7% by 2028
- Postal Service Clerks29% now, 29% by 2028
- Shipping, Receiving, and Inventory Clerks43% now, 43% by 2028
- Driver/Sales Workers13% now, 13% by 2028
Where this job works
The industry groups that employ the most of it (BLS, May 2025).
Where the most of these jobs are
The metro areas with the most people in it (BLS, May 2025).