Paperhangers
Cover interior walls or ceilings of rooms with decorative wallpaper or fabric, or attach advertising posters on surfaces such as walls and billboards. May remove old materials or prepare surfaces to be papered.
1,570 people do this job in the US. $52,140 a year.
of the working time. Estimate.
- 0%
- 0%
- 100%
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, 0%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 0%. Today's estimate: 0%.
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 . 19 tasks from .
| Task | Kind | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cover interior walls and ceilings of rooms with decorative wallpaper or fabric, using hand tools.Done daily by most who do it. | 61% | 5 h2.5 h to 1 work day | Stays with people | |
| Remove old paper, using water, steam machines, or solvents and scrapers.Done more than yearly by most who do it. | 5% | 1.7 h50 min to 5 h | Stays with people | |
| Measure surfaces or review work orders to estimate the quantities of materials needed.Done more than weekly by most who do it. | 4% | 25 min13 min to 1.1 h | Stays with people | |
| Check finished wallcoverings for proper alignment, pattern matching, and neatness of seams.Done daily by most who do it. | 3% | 17 min8 min to 38 min | Stays with people | |
| Place strips or sections of paper on surfaces, aligning section edges and patterns.Done more than yearly by most who do it. | 3% | 13 min7 min to 21 min | Stays with people | |
| Set up equipment, such as pasteboards and scaffolds.Done daily by most who do it. | 3% | 25 min13 min to 50 min | Stays with people | |
| Apply sizing to seal surfaces and maximize adhesion of coverings to surfaces.Done more than weekly by most who do it. | 3% | 33 min17 min to 1.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Measure and cut strips from rolls of wallpaper or fabric, using shears or razors.Done daily by most who do it. | 2% | 13 min4 min to 33 min | Stays with people | |
| Mark vertical guidelines on walls to align strips, using plumb bobs and chalk lines.Done daily by most who do it. | 2% | 13 min4 min to 25 min | Stays with people | |
| Apply adhesives to the backs of paper strips, using brushes, or dunk strips of prepasted wallcovering in water, wiping off any excess adhesive.Done daily by most who do it. | 2% | 13 min4 min to 25 min | Stays with people | |
| Fill holes, cracks, and other surface imperfections preparatory to covering surfaces.Done daily by most who do it. | 2% | 38 min17 min to 1.7 h | Stays with people | |
| Trim excess material at ceilings or baseboards, using knives.Done daily by most who do it. | 2% | 10 min4 min to 21 min | Stays with people |
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.
- Floor Layers, Except Carpet, Wood, and Hard Tiles3% now, 3% by 2028
- Carpet Installers17% now, 17% by 2028
- Drywall and Ceiling Tile Installers8% now, 8% by 2028
- Painters, Construction and Maintenance4% now, 4% by 2028
- Painting, Coating, and Decorating Workers0% now, 0% by 2028
- Tile and Stone Setters4% now, 4% 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).