Career Explorer Office and admin
Human edge, growing
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.
More resilient than most: more resilient than 66% of the 831 careers we score. AI exposure is moderate (the Bureau of Labor Statistics rates it moderate), and US jobs are projected to change by +8.0% by 2035, faster than average.
AI struggles with much of this work, and US employers are expected to hire more people into it than average.
- Median pay (2025)
- $39,200
- Job growth to 2035
- +8.0%
- Openings a year
- 23,800
- People doing it (2025)
- 229,000
- Usual route in
- High school diploma, then short on-the-job training
Where people already use AI for this work
- Communicate with others about operational plans or activities
- Obtain formal documentation or authorization
- Provide information to guests, clients, or customers
From Microsoft Research, Working with AI (2025).
Work AI rarely helps with
- Move materials, equipment, or supplies
- Load products, materials, or equipment for transportation or further processing
- Operate transportation equipment or vehicles
What the work looks like
- Deliver and pick up medical records, lab specimens, and medications to and from hospitals and other medical facilities.
- Walk, ride bicycles, drive vehicles, or use public conveyances to reach destinations to deliver messages or materials.
- Load vehicles with listed goods, ensuring goods are loaded correctly and taking precautions with hazardous goods.
- Receive messages or materials to be delivered, and information on recipients, such as names, addresses, telephone numbers, and delivery instructions, communicated via telephone, two-way radio, or in person.
- Deliver messages and items, such as newspapers, documents, and packages, between establishment departments and to other establishments and private homes.
From O*NET 31.0, US Department of Labor.
What the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects
- Fewer of these jobs, as innovations such as e-delivery (and e-signatures) help get important and time-sensitive documents signed and delivered online, eliminating the expenses of printing and shipping signed documents for same day or overnight delivery.
- Fewer of these jobs, as legally binding electronic signatures become more accepted and widely used and as more states adopt electronic document submission.
Careers using similar strengths, with a stronger outlook
- Driver/sales workersHuman edge, growing, Index 70, +7.9%
- Janitors and cleaners, except maids and housekeeping cleanersHuman edge, steady, Index 70, +2.2%
- Light truck driversHuman edge, growing, Index 75, +6.3%
- Laborers and freight, stock, and material movers, handHuman edge, steady, Index 72, +1.8%
Also known as: Courier, Driver, Lab Courier (Laboratory Courier), Messenger, Delivery Driver, Mail Carrier, Mailroom Courier, Security Messenger.
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Sources: US Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Projections 2025 to 2035; O*NET 31.0; Microsoft Research (2025); Anthropic Economic Index (2026); Eloundou and colleagues (Science, 2024); Felten, Raj and Seamans (2023). How we score. Updated 12 October 2026.