Career Explorer Office and admin
Changing shape
Office machine operators, except computer
Operate one or more of a variety of office machines, such as photocopying, photographic, and duplicating machines, or other office machines.
Among the careers AI is changing fastest: more resilient than 9% of the 831 careers we score. AI exposure is moderate (the Bureau of Labor Statistics rates it high), and US jobs are projected to change by -14.9% by 2035, expected to shrink.
AI can do many of the tasks, and hiring is expected to grow slower than average or to shrink. The job is likely to change, so build the human parts of it.
- Median pay (2025)
- $40,960
- Job growth to 2035
- -14.9%
- Openings a year
- 2,100
- People doing it (2025)
- 25,800
- Usual route in
- High school diploma, then short on-the-job training
Where people already use AI for this work
- Operate office equipment
- Adjust equipment to ensure adequate performance
- Compile records, documentation, or other data
From Microsoft Research, Working with AI (2025).
Work AI rarely helps with
- Maintain tools or equipment
- Clean tools, equipment, facilities, or work areas
- Sort materials or products
What the work looks like
- Read job orders to determine the type of work to be done, the quantities to be produced, and the materials needed.
- Deliver completed work.
- Place original copies in feed trays, feed originals into feed rolls, or position originals on tables beneath camera lenses.
- Sort, assemble, and proof completed work.
- Operate office machines such as high speed business photocopiers, readers, scanners, addressing machines, stencil-cutting machines, microfilm readers or printers, folding and inserting machines, bursters, and binder machines.
From O*NET 31.0, US Department of Labor.
What the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects
- Fewer of these jobs, as more offices become paperless and continue to use technology such as electronic filing systems.
Careers using similar strengths, with a stronger outlook
- Cooks, short orderHuman edge, steady, Index 30, -5.2%
- Painting, coating, and decorating workersHuman edge, steady, Index 55, +1.3%
- Postal service mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operatorsHuman edge, steady, Index 30, -5.3%
- Couriers and messengersHuman edge, growing, Index 66, +8.0%
Also known as: Copy Center Operator, Copy Machine Operator, Key Operator, Machine Operator, Copy Technician, Graphics Production Specialist, Printing Services Coordinator, Reprographics Technician.
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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.