Job Check
Postal Service Mail Carriers
Sort and deliver mail for the United States Postal Service (USPS). Deliver mail on established route by vehicle or on foot. Includes postal service mail carriers employed by USPS contractors.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Scan labels on letters or parcels to confirm receipt.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 02Obtain signed receipts for registered, certified, and insured mail, collect associated charges, and complete any necessary paperwork.Mostly human for now
- 03Return to the post office with mail collected from homes, businesses, and public mailboxes.Mostly human for now
- 04Sort mail for delivery, arranging it in delivery sequence.Mostly human for now
- 05Deliver mail to residences and business establishments along specified routes by walking or driving, using a combination of satchels, carts, cars, and small trucks.Mostly human for now
- 06Meet schedules for the collection and return of mail.Mostly human for now
- 07Sign for cash-on-delivery and registered mail before leaving the post office.Mostly human for now
- 08Hold mail for customers who are away from delivery locations.Mostly human for now
- 09Turn in money and receipts collected along mail routes.Mostly human for now
- 10Leave notices telling patrons where to collect mail that could not be delivered.Mostly human for now
Tasks from O*NET® 31.0 (US Department of Labor, CC BY 4.0, changed by us), most important first. “Already use” comes from Anthropic’s data on real work chats with Claude; “could speed up” from task ratings made with GPT-4 in 2023.
Four studies, side by side
None is a forecast of job lossToo little dataNot enough work use was seen to measure. This does not mean the job is safe from AI.Anthropic, 2026
23%of this job’s tasks an AI model could do in half the time, counting tasks that need extra tools as half (rated in 2023).Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin and Rock, 2023
Above 40% of jobsin how often and how well AI helped with this job’s work in Microsoft Copilot chats (2024 data).Microsoft Research (Tomlinson et al.), 2025
Above 92% of jobsin how much of this job’s physical work robots have been shown to do, from factories to homes (2026).Anthropic, 2026
Your human edge
The main tasks with no real AI use seen and no big speed-up expected. This is where your skill counts most today.
- Obtain signed receipts for registered, certified, and insured mail, collect associated charges, and complete any necessary paperwork.
- Return to the post office with mail collected from homes, businesses, and public mailboxes.
- Sort mail for delivery, arranging it in delivery sequence.