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CAREER PROFILE

Dry Cleaning and Laundry Occupations

Dry cleaning and laundry workers help keep clothing and household items clean, fresh, and ready to use. In this career, you may operate washing, drying, and dry-cleaning machines, check items for quality, press garments, and package finished orders. You’ll also use English to communicate with customers and math to match tags and invoices. If you like hands-on work, organization, and helping people, this could be a practical career to explore.

EDUCATION ROUTEMultiple pathways
WORK STYLEVaries by role
CAREER FIELDMarketing, Sales and Service

HOW TO GET THERE

Typical pathway

A typical Canadian secondary-school pathway is to finish Grade 12 and look for entry-level work at a dry cleaner, laundry, or garment care business. Employers often provide on-the-job training in using washing, drying, and dry-cleaning machines, checking quality, pressing items, and matching tags and invoices. Some workers gain experience through part-time, summer, or other customer-service jobs first. English and basic math help with customer communication and tracking orders. Requirements can vary by employer, province, and the type of work, so some positions may ask for different experience or skills.

THE WORK

What you may do

Legacy duties

  • Operate dry cleaning machines to dry-clean dresses, suits, coats, sweaters and other garments, draperies, cushion covers and other articles
  • Operate washing machines and dryers to clean and dry garments, sheets, blankets, towels and other articles
  • Operate machines to clean and blow-dry fur garments
  • Operate machines to dry-clean, dye, spray, re-oil, and re-buff suede and leather garments.
  • Check finished garments and other articles to ensure that they are properly dry-cleaned or laundered
  • Record damaged or improperly dry-cleaned or laundered garments and other articles
  • Use hand-held steam iron to touch up finished garments and other articles
  • Assemble and bag finished garments and other articles
  • Match invoices with tags on garments or other articles.

SKILLS TO BUILD

Skills used in this Career

Customer ServiceDealing with the PublicPromoting

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