---
title: "Paper Goods Machine Setter, Operator, and Tender"
description: "Set up, operate, or tend paper goods machines that perform a variety of functions, such as converting, sawing, corrugating, banding, wrapping, boxing…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/paper-goods-machine-setter-operator-and-tender"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Paper Goods Machine Setter, Operator, and Tender

**Category:** Production · **SOC code:** 51-9196 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 51-9196.00

Set up, operate, or tend paper goods machines that perform a variety of functions, such as converting, sawing, corrugating, banding, wrapping, boxing, stitching, forming, or sealing paper or paperboard sheets into products.

Also advertised as: Corrugator Operator; Cup Room Technician; Folder Machine Operator; Gluer Operator; Paper Cutter Operator; Paper Machine Backtender; Paper Machine Operator; Stitching Machine Operator.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $50,270 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $24.17/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $37,300 to $70,320, with the middle half between $44,920 and $60,180
- **Total US employment:** 96,130
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -3.6% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 9,000 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 58/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 96,130 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $37,300 |
| 25th | $44,920 |
| 50th (median) | $50,270 |
| 75th | $60,180 |
| 90th | $70,320 |
| Mean (average) | $52,840 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| OK | $63,640 | $72,447 | 1,390 |
| ME | $61,780 | $63,658 | 740 |
| UT | $60,790 | $61,489 | 1,350 |
| WA | $59,410 | $55,517 | 2,170 |
| LA | $58,230 | $66,015 | 1,150 |
| MN | $58,150 | $58,963 | 1,960 |
| KY | $58,050 | $64,386 | 2,670 |
| WI | $58,050 | $61,693 | 8,510 |
| ID | $57,950 | $60,684 | 480 |
| OR | $56,810 | $54,963 | 680 |
| IL | $56,400 | $56,424 | 5,360 |
| NM | $53,930 | $58,485 | 100 |
| NY | $52,800 | $48,925 | 3,280 |
| AL | $52,290 | $58,870 | 3,800 |
| PA | $51,780 | $53,069 | 7,410 |

29 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 44 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/paper-goods-machine-setter-operator-and-tender/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/paper-goods-machine-setter-operator-and-tender.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 96,100 in the 2025–2035 base year to 92,600 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 3,500 jobs, or -3.6%. Declining: -3.6% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 9,000 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Moderate-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 69.4% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 20.2% |
| Some College Courses | 9.4% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 0.6% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 0.5% |

## What the work involves

- Examine completed work to detect defects and verify conformance to work orders, and adjust machinery as necessary to correct production problems.
- Observe operation of various machines to detect and correct machine malfunctions such as improper forming, glue flow, or pasteboard tension.
- Disassemble machines to maintain, repair, or replace broken or worn parts, using hand or power tools.
- Start machines and move controls to regulate tension on pressure rolls, to synchronize speed of machine components, and to adjust temperatures of glue or paraffin.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Operations Monitoring — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operation and Control — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Quality Control Analysis — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Equipment Maintenance — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Production and Processing — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mechanical — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 2.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Near Vision — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Arm-Hand Steadiness — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Control Precision — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Information Ordering — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Selective Attention — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Realistic (R), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 6.53 |
| C — Conventional | 4.55 |
| I — Investigative | 1.72 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.45 |
| A — Artistic | 1.26 |
| S — Social | 1.00 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 89.4 |
| ISFJ | 75.6 |
| ESTJ | 74.9 |
| ISTP | 74.6 |
| INTJ | 64.1 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Adhesive Bonding Machine Operator and Tender](https://nuecareer.com/careers/adhesive-bonding-machine-operator-and-tender) — median $46,460
- [Cutting and Slicing Machine Setter, Operator, and Tender](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cutting-and-slicing-machine-setter-operator-and-tender) — median $46,570
- [Textile Cutting Machine Setter, Operator, and Tender](https://nuecareer.com/careers/textile-cutting-machine-setter-operator-and-tender) — median $38,760
- [Extruding and Forming Machine Setter, Operator, and Tender, Synthetic and Glass Fiber](https://nuecareer.com/careers/extruding-and-forming-machine-setter-operator-and-tender-synthetic-and-glass-fiber) — median $46,350
- [Machine Feeder and Offbearer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/machine-feeder-and-offbearer) — median $41,220
- [Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setter, Operator, and Tender](https://nuecareer.com/careers/extruding-forming-pressing-and-compacting-machine-setter-operator-and-tender) — median $45,760
- [Cutting, Punching, and Press Machine Setter, Operator, and Tender, Metal and Plastic](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cutting-punching-and-press-machine-setter-operator-and-tender-metal-and-plastic) — median $46,330
- [Woodworking Machine Setter, Operator, and Tender, Except Sawing](https://nuecareer.com/careers/woodworking-machine-setter-operator-and-tender) — median $43,380
- [Rolling Machine Setter, Operator, and Tender, Metal and Plastic](https://nuecareer.com/careers/rolling-machine-setter-operator-and-tender-metal-and-plastic) — median $50,140
- [Industrial Machinery Mechanic](https://nuecareer.com/careers/industrial-machinery-mechanic) — median $64,520

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/paper-goods-machine-setter-operator-and-tender