Elementary occupations · code 9621
Messengers, package deliverers and luggage porters
The app plans the route. Carrying the parcel up four flights of stairs is still you.
Planning the quickest route is the one task AI could take a fair chunk of. Delivering parcels and carrying luggage it barely touches.
What they actually do (and what else they get called)
Messengers, package deliverers and luggage porters carry and deliver messages, packages and other items on foot, within an establishment or between establishments, to households and elsewhere, or carry luggage, especially at hotels, stations and airports. Tasks include - (a) delivering messages, packages and other items within an establishment or between establishments or elsewhere; (b) delivering various goods to and from enterprises, shops, households and other places; (c) carrying and delivering luggage at hotels, stations, airports, and elsewhere; (d) receiving and marking baggage by completing and attaching claim checks; (e) planning and following the most efficient route; (f) sorting items to be delivered according to the delivery route. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Hotel porter - Luggage porter - Messenger - Leaflet deliverer - Newspaper deliverer Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Mail carrier - 4412 - Postman/woman - 4412
- hotel porter
- doorman/doorwoman
Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.
63 / 100
Mostly holds up against AI
AI can take a few chores off your plate, but most of the day is still yours.
Not the odds you keep your job. It's how much of the everyday work still needs a person, out of 100.
The ILO's official verdict: Exposed: Gradient 1
299 of 427 for holding up against AI
Not quite your week? Make it yours ↓
Why this score?
The ILO rated each of this job's 6 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 37 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 37 = 63.
That's the whole sum. No black box, no secret sauce: you can check it against the ILO's study. ILO group “Exposed: Gradient 1”: The mildest of the ILO’s four “exposed” groups.
This job rates 67.6 out of 100 for how hands-on it is. The score above only looks at AI tools, not robots, and for work like this robots are the bigger question.
from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use
Man v Bot · compare
Who holds up better?
Messengers, package deliverers and luggage porters 63
vGo on, try your partner's job. Or your sibling's. We won't tell.
Man v Bot
Where the bot helps, and where the human wins
Bot
What AI takes
The routine stuff. You may not miss it.
- Route planning.
- Sorting by delivery route.
- Tracking and proof of delivery.
Man
What people still do better
Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.
- Delivering to real doors.
- Carrying luggage and parcels.
- Dealing with people and problems.
Both
What's arriving
New work that only exists because the AI does.
- E-cargo bikes and electric vans.
- Delivery robots and drones on some routes.
- Platform gig work.
Written by a human, from the ILO's task ratings below. Yes, we see the irony. Read it as one person's take.
Meet your two rivals
They're not the same machine. AI software can only reach the parts of a job done on a screen or in words. A chatbot can't climb a ladder. A robot might, one day, if it doesn't fall off.
The AI
Lives in a screen. Never had to fix a boiler.
Threat level: Low
30 could do without you
It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 48 of 100.
The robot
The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.
How much it matters here: Higher
68 how hands-on
Most of this job needs hands, a body or turning up. That's robot territory, and nobody measures how far robots have got well enough to give you a number. We won't make one up.
So could a robot do the physical part?
Less fine handwork and fewer cramped spaces than a typical hands-on job. That clears one hurdle for machines. It doesn't mean machines are doing this work yet.
Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 30 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.
hands-on
and cramped
Kind of hands-on work Hands-on, less fiddly work
The small print
They aren't a robot score, and nothing on this page is. Nobody measures how far robots have got well enough to put a number on it. These are the closest thing we have: how hands-on the job is, and how much fiddly, cramped work it takes, which is what Frey and Osborne found hardest for machines.
From O*NET, averaged across 2 US jobs .
finger skill 33.9 · hand skill 37.5 · cramped spaces 18.2 · averaged · rule: hands-on 50+ · fiddly under 39.4
estimated O*NET 31.0 BLS occupational crosswalk chain ISCO-08 to 2010 SOC (Aug 2012, rev. Jun 2015); 2010 to 2018 SOC (Nov 2017); O*NET-SOC 2019 taxonomy data 0.8-observed-use measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement
The job, task by task
Every job is really a bundle of tasks. Here's this one unpacked, with how much of each AI could do, out of 100. The score is the average, and averages can hide a lot.
AI's favourite task here scores 70, against an average of 37. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.
- 70
Planning and following the most efficient route
Medium - 43
Sorting items to be delivered according to the delivery route.
Low - 41
Receiving and marking baggage by completing and attaching claim checks
Low - 25
Delivering various goods to and from enterprises, shops, households and other places
Low - 24
Delivering messages, packages and other items within an establishment or between establishments, or elsewhere
Very Low - 20
Carrying and delivering luggage at hotels, stations, airports, and elsewhere
Very Low
6 tasks · the High to Very Low labels are the ILO's
from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use
New · the weekly task audit
Your week, your score
The score above assumes couriers and porters spend the same time on every task. You don't. Slide each task to how much of your week it takes, and we'll re-weight the same ILO ratings to fit your job.
- Some
- Some
- Some
- Some
- Some
- Some
Your score
63 / 100
Same as the job as a whole, so far.
Move the sliders to make it yours.
The job as a whole: 63 / 100
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Sidekick or replacement?
A tool that makes you faster is a very different thing from one that does the task while you watch. Jobs and Skills Australia measured the two separately, which is handy.
- AI helps you
- 48
- AI does it for you
- 30
Sidekick wins, by 18 points.
How good a match is this?
3 Australian jobs match this one, and we've simply averaged them. Treat the numbers as a rough guide.
estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.8-observed-use matched to Australian jobs 4319, 5612, 8999
Meanwhile, in real life…
Everything else here is about what AI could do. This is what people actually did. When they asked Claude for help with this kind of work, did they hand the whole task over, or roll their sleeves up and work through it together?
Tiny sample alert This job makes up 0.01% of all the conversations: a tiny slice, mostly the paperwork rather than the work. People using AI for a job isn't the same as AI being able to do it.
Out of every 100 conversations
worked through it together handed it over
The small print
Anthropic publishes this about its own product, and it doesn't feed into any score here. These are people who use Claude, not workers in general, so little use here doesn't mean AI can't reach the job.
The data is sorted by US job, and this one matches 2 of them. We've combined them, counting each by how often it comes up in the conversations, so the busiest one counts most.
These two add up to 100. The bars elsewhere on the page don't, because each is scored on its own, so we don't put them side by side.
observed use Anthropic Economic Index release 2026-06-26, period beginning 2026-05-01 data 0.8-observed-use 2026-05-01 · Anthropic, about its own product
So, should couriers and porters be worried?
Short answer: not much. Some of the chores will change, and good riddance.
Parts of it are changing. Planning routes is rated Medium, and sorting and tagging luggage are Low; delivering and carrying rate Very Low. Route planning is already automated, and delivery robots and drones are trialled, but most deliveries still need people.
Worth remembering: we score tasks, not jobs. When AI takes on a task, the job usually reshuffles around it rather than vanishing.
How are the neighbours doing?
There are 33 jobs in the “Elementary occupations” family, averaging 86. This one is below the family average.
- Vehicle cleaners 91
- Water and firewood collectors 91
- Crop farm labourers 91
- Garbage and recycling collectors 91
- Civil engineering labourers 91
- Forestry labourers 91
- Building construction labourers 91
- Sweepers and related labourers 91
- Other cleaning workers 90
- Mining and quarrying labourers 89
- Odd job persons 89
- Window cleaners 89
- Fishery and aquaculture labourers 89
- Mixed crop and livestock farm laboure… 89
- Garden and horticultural labourers 88
- Cleaners and helpers in offices, hote… 88
- Livestock farm labourers 88
- Manufacturing labourers not elsewhere… 88
- Kitchen helpers 87
- Drivers of animal-drawn vehicles and … 87
- Freight handlers 86
- Domestic cleaners and helpers 86
- Hand launderers and pressers 86
- Street and related service workers 82
- Refuse sorters 82
- Fast food preparers 82
- Hand packers 80
- Shelf fillers 80