Laundry worker
Also called dry cleaner, clothes washer, dry cleaning worker
Laundry workers operate and monitor machines that use chemicals to wash or dry-clean articles such as cloth and leather garments, linens, drapes or carpets, ensuring the color and texture of these articles is being maintained. They work in laundry shops and industrial laundry companies and sort the articles received from clients by fabric type. They also determine the cleaning technique to be applied.
What you'd do
Laundry machine operators · ILO- Sorting articles for cleaning according to the type, colour, fabric and cleaning treatment required
- Placing sorted articles into receptacles and onto conveyor belts for moving to repair and cleaning areas
- Checking and removing stains from garments, replacing buttons and making minor repairs
- Loading and unloading washing machines, driers and extractors
- Adding cleaning agents and starches to articles
- Smoothing articles and guiding them through cleaning and pressing machines
- Stopping and starting machines to untangle, straighten and remove articles
- Placing articles on shelves and hanging articles for delivery and collection
- Packaging articles and preparing orders for despatch
- Indoors
- On your feet most of the day
- Lots of contact with people
- Some freedom to decide
- Usually 40 hours a week
- Deadlines most weeks
- Some repetitive tasks
Will there be jobs?
Limited prospectsFewer jobs than in most work will need filling by 2035.
Solid: measured. Dashed: forecast.
What does it pay?
About averagePay depends a lot on the country: from about €1,000 a month (Bulgaria) to €5,500 (Denmark), before tax.
Pick a country at the top of the page to see typical pay there, for people under 30, and compared with all jobs.
Among plant and machine operators, and assemblers in the EU, women earn 21% less per hour than men. Plant and machine operators, and assemblers · Eurostat
What do I need to study?
Upper secondary or vocationalUpper secondary or vocational training in textiles (clothes, footwear and leather) is the usual route.
Pick a country at the top of the page to see where to study and the official course finders.
Will AI change it?
Very littleAI could help with only small parts of the tasks.
Average task score 0.16 on a scale from 0 (AI can't do it) to 1 (AI could do it fully).
See the score for each of the 9 tasks
Based on what AI could technically do when assessed in 2025. It is not a forecast for a future year, and not a forecast of job losses. Scores for laundry machine operators. Source: ILO (2025), adapted (credits).