Career Explorer Production
Human edge, steady
Print binding and finishing workers
Bind books and other publications or finish printed products by hand or machine. May set up binding and finishing machines.
Changing faster than most: more resilient than 37% of the 831 careers we score. AI exposure is low (the Bureau of Labor Statistics rates it low), and US jobs are projected to change by -17.5% by 2035, expected to shrink. The work leans on physical dexterity.
AI struggles with much of this work. Hiring is expected to grow slower than average, or to shrink.
- Median pay (2025)
- $42,290
- Job growth to 2035
- -17.5%
- Openings a year
- 2,300
- People doing it (2025)
- 32,300
- Usual route in
- High school diploma, then moderate on-the-job training
Where people already use AI for this work
- Read documents or materials to inform work processes
- Adjust equipment to ensure adequate performance
- Confer with clients to determine needs or order specifications
From Microsoft Research, Working with AI (2025).
Work AI rarely helps with
- Operate industrial processing or production equipment
- Cut materials
- Sew garments or materials
What the work looks like
- Examine stitched, collated, bound, or unbound product samples for defects, such as imperfect bindings, ink spots, torn pages, loose pages, or loose or uncut threads.
- Read work orders to determine instructions and specifications for machine set-up.
- Install or adjust bindery machine devices, such as knives, guides, rollers, rounding forms, creasing rams, or clamps, to accommodate sheets, signatures, or books of specified sizes.
- Trim edges of books to size, using cutting machines, book trimming machines, or hand cutters.
- Stitch or glue endpapers, bindings, backings, or signatures, using sewing machines, glue machines, or glue and brushes.
From O*NET 31.0, US Department of Labor.
What the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects
- Fewer of these jobs, as the industry adopts automated binding technologies.
Careers using similar strengths, with a stronger outlook
- Extruding, forming, pressing, and compacting machine setters, operators, and tendersHuman edge, steady, Index 65, +1.5%
- Food processing workers, all otherHuman edge, growing, Index 86, +5.5%
- Production workers, all otherHuman edge, steady, Index 79, +0.8%
- Electrical, electronic, and electromechanical assemblers, except coil winders, tapers, and finishersHuman edge, growing, Index 73, +5.0%
Also known as: Binder Operator, Bindery Operator, Bindery Worker, Book Binder, Bindery Technician, Custom Bookbinder, Perfect Binder Operator.
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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.