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Job outlook for office clerks in the United States
Office clerk job growth summary. After extensive research, interviews, and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
The projected office clerk job growth rate is -5% from 2018-2028.
About -130,800 new jobs for office clerks are projected over the next decade.
Office clerk salaries have increased 16% for office clerks in the last 5 years.
There are over 1,008,825 office clerks currently employed in the United States.
There are 106,497 active office clerk job openings in the US.
The average office clerk salary is $30,927.
Are office clerk jobs in demand?
Office clerk job and salary trends over time
Office clerk jobs over time
Office clerk job growth rate over time
| Year | # of jobs | % of population |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 1,008,825 | 0.30% |
| 2020 | 1,088,559 | 0.32% |
| 2019 | 1,155,304 | 0.35% |
| 2018 | 1,162,975 | 0.35% |
| 2017 | 1,161,627 | 0.35% |
Average office clerk salary over time
Office clerk salary by year
| Year | Avg. salary | Hourly rate | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | $30,927 | $14.87 | +3.8% |
| 2025 | $29,798 | $14.33 | +4.0% |
| 2024 | $28,651 | $13.77 | +3.9% |
| 2023 | $27,574 | $13.26 | +3.0% |
| 2022 | $26,769 | $12.87 | +3.4% |
Office clerk jobs by state
Most common states for office clerks
| Rank | State | Population | # of jobs | Employment/ 1000ppl |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alaska | 739,795 | 204 | 28% |
| 2 | District of Columbia | 693,972 | 170 | 24% |
| 3 | Iowa | 3,145,711 | 645 | 21% |
| 4 | Kansas | 2,913,123 | 619 | 21% |
| 5 | Delaware | 961,939 | 202 | 21% |
| 6 | Indiana | 6,666,818 | 1,316 | 20% |
| 7 | Connecticut | 3,588,184 | 701 | 20% |
| 8 | Washington | 7,405,743 | 1,375 | 19% |
| 9 | Massachusetts | 6,859,819 | 1,324 | 19% |
| 10 | Minnesota | 5,576,606 | 1,058 | 19% |
| 11 | Utah | 3,101,833 | 583 | 19% |
| 12 | Florida | 20,984,400 | 3,681 | 18% |
| 13 | Wisconsin | 5,795,483 | 1,034 | 18% |
| 14 | Colorado | 5,607,154 | 1,015 | 18% |
| 15 | Oregon | 4,142,776 | 763 | 18% |
| 16 | Idaho | 1,716,943 | 308 | 18% |
| 17 | South Dakota | 869,666 | 159 | 18% |
| 18 | Vermont | 623,657 | 115 | 18% |
| 19 | Nebraska | 1,920,076 | 317 | 17% |
| 20 | Wyoming | 579,315 | 95 | 16% |
Most common cities for office clerks
| Rank | City | # of jobs | Employment/ 1000ppl | Avg. salary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Burlington | 4 | 16% | $31,587 |
| 2 | Eureka | 2 | 7% | $34,917 |
| 3 | Saint Cloud | 4 | 6% | $31,798 |
| 4 | Georgetown | 2 | 6% | $28,300 |
| 5 | Addison | 2 | 5% | $31,456 |
| 6 | Annapolis | 2 | 5% | $27,976 |
| 7 | Florence | 2 | 5% | $25,209 |
| 8 | Sterling Heights | 4 | 3% | $30,305 |
| 9 | Fort Lauderdale | 3 | 2% | $27,246 |
| 10 | Concord | 2 | 2% | $34,561 |
| 11 | Arlington | 2 | 1% | $29,430 |
| 12 | Irvine | 2 | 1% | $33,367 |
| 13 | Irving | 2 | 1% | $29,406 |
| 14 | Los Angeles | 5 | 0% | $33,538 |
| 15 | Denver | 3 | 0% | $35,369 |
| 16 | San Diego | 3 | 0% | $33,128 |
| 17 | Baltimore | 2 | 0% | $28,056 |
Office Clerk job outlook: Expert opinions
Our panel of office clerk experts
Ohio University
Missouri University of Science & Technology
Manhattan College
College of Charleston
Dixie State University
West Liberty University
Meredith College
What skills stand out on Office Clerk resumes?
Allison White: Knowledge of spreadsheets software such as MS Excel is a commonly sought-after skill. Employers want word processing and spreadsheet skills but often say they want high school graduates and pay accordingly. These skills aren't always taught in high school. Those in the field should seek these skills. Additionally, medical and legal assistants have highly sought after. Terminology courses for these specialized areas are sometimes offered at the vocational schools but are usually offered at the post-secondary level.
What soft skills should all Office Clerks possess?
Allison White: Employers have told me repeatedly that soft skills are often the most important. They will ask for my reference after I've gotten to know a student and been able to identify their communication, problem-solving, and interpersonal skills. They want someone to take the initiative yet know when to ask questions. Customer service skills and confidentiality were also voiced by our internship supervisors. Verbal and non-verbal communication is a must. The applicant must be able to write well!!
What hard/technical skills are most important for Office Clerks?
Allison White: In addition to production software skills, including MS Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, we often taught database skills using MS Access. Every employer has an employee database and a customer/client database that requires input and sometimes maintenance by office personnel. Keyboarding (65+ wpm), basic bookkeeping/accounting, and filing skills are a must.
Christi Patton Luks
Professor (NTT) and Associate Chair for Academic AffairsMissouri University of Science & Technology
Linda & Bipin Doshi Department of Chemical & Biochemical Engineering
What are the biggest trends we'll see in the Office Clerk job market given the pandemic?
Christi Patton Luks: I think that the pandemic has proven to everyone that online education can work. I think this will increase the number of undergraduates that want to take a course or two online while they are working on internship or co-op positions and professionals returning to school virtually for additional credentials and training. Some engineering jobs have been moved to work-from-home successfully, but many still need to be on site. Flexibility will continue, however.
What soft skills should all Office Clerks possess?
Robert Geraci Ph.D.: The ability to read, write, and think critically are timeless skills. Applying these thoughtfully to social media could be a particularly crucial skill as companies seek to brand themselves effectively and avoid public missteps that come from cultural ignorance and/or myopic views of the American public. Students in Religious Studies receive an education that recognizes cultural diversity and have opportunities to think about what is or is not an effective and accurate perspective of different peoples.
How have salaries changed over time for Office Clerks?
Robert Geraci Ph.D.: There is no professional field in Religious Studies. Students who major in Religious Studies typically end up working in the private sector, though many also join government, NGOs, and other international organizations. Salaries in these latter fields have been--as far as I'm aware--relatively static. But private sector jobs, especially those in tech companies are on the rise. The ability to help a company expand its audience and promote positive publicity will be of ongoing worth to companies as they expand their global footprints.
Will there be an enduring impact of the coronavirus pandemic on Office Clerks?
Jacob Craig Ph.D.: Yes, without question. I graduated with my undergraduate degree in 2008 while the economy was in collapse, and those impacts are still reverberating.
There are some smart people thinking about this right now. Scott Galloway and Fareed Zakaria have both published compelling books about the effects of COVID on the economic trends-including the education industry. Both of those thinkers have influenced my own ideas.
What's clear is that COVID-19 really only accelerated trends that people have been discussing for some time. Education has been shifting online, movie theaters have been dying, brick and mortar retail has been on decline, and the print industry has been in distress for at least 10 years because of consolidation. Aside from the economic impacts of COVID-19 that have affected the job market, there are a few other impacts graduates should consider. But many of these are good news for graduates who can write and learn to write in new forms for new audiences.
What's key for graduates to know is that the job they want still exists. It's just not in the same industry and goes by a different name.
What type of skills will young Office Clerks need?
Jacob Craig Ph.D.: In school, students are often taught to work by themselves. In some cases, they are even penalized for working with others. In some rare cases, students are asked to do a little group work but only for a short amount of time, at the end of their learning in a class.
The first thing that graduates need to know is that the workplace is nearly opposite from school. Employees, especially professional, technical, and content writer jobs, are more often than not collaborative and teams-based. The added wrinkle is that office culture is unlikely to go back to pre-pandemic occupancy rates.
So graduates need to know is that odds are good that at least part of their job will be remote. And that might be the case for at least part of the time. Announcements from tech, finance, and insurance about their latest work-from-home policies keep making the news. So not only are the chances good that they'll be working in teams, their team members and co-workers won't be in the same room with them. They'll be working collaboratively through writing. This is good news for English graduates. Much of the writing someone in a professional, technical, or content writing job are products meant for public readership. Like press releases that are sent to news outlets. But all of that writing is built on a network of notes, memos, policies, and text threads meant for co-workers. Remote work just means that co-workers will be writing each other more and more often. English graduates who can make texts for public audiences and write effectively to co-workers are positioned to do well.
The second thing that students need to know is how to start and stop writing in the context of someone else's draft. They will rarely begin with a blank screen and end with a finished text.
The third thing is that it's likely small businesses will take some time to bounce back. In those workplace settings, it is likely that an employee will need to have a range of knowledge and skills because their job will combine parts multiple roles. So a copywriter in a small marketing firm might need to also know something about SEO and social analytics and visual design. In larger offices, however, jobs tend to be much more specialized and team-based. So graduates need to be comfortable working in teams where they have an assigned role, and they need to be able to receive work in-process, complete their assigned part, and hand that work off still in-process.
And finally, students need to learn how to learn new technologies. Learn just through documentation, without a human tutorial. Even if employees are exclusively using the Microsoft Suite, it will be used for writing, editing, project management. It will be used to collaborate and present. Depending on where a student studies and what classes they take, those digital pieces might not be a part of their coursework. So, at the very least, students need to know that the workforce will constantly ask them to learn new technologies and new uses for familiar technologies.
What experience really stands out on Office Clerk resumes?
Jacob Craig Ph.D.: I believe strongly in dexterity and a language of expertise. That means that if a student can show they can adapt to new demands by learning a new way of working, learning about a new audience, learning how to address a new purpose, learning a new genre or style, and learning a new technology, that employee attractive. Especially at the entry-level, the ability to learn and adapt is valuable. Being able to talk about their experience using a persuasive vocabulary is often useful. For instance, if students can describe their approach to communication without using cliches (short and sweet, clear) and something along the lines of purpose, audience, situation, genre, medium--that's persuasive.
Dr. Mike Peterson Ph.D.
Department Chair and Associate Professor of EnglishDixie State University
English Department
What skills stand out on Office Clerk resumes?
Dr. Mike Peterson Ph.D.: Writing skills have always been valued by employers, but anything that shows an ability to write, produce, or communicate in digital spaces will stand out. While employers are becoming increasingly comfortable having employees work and collaborate digitally (from home or elsewhere), they may still be reluctant to train employees how to do that. They want to see evidence that applicants will know how to use technology and stay productive without extensive training and without a supervisor having to stand behind them. That isn't to say training won't take place, but employers want to use their valuable time and resources training employees on their own systems, policies, and procedures; they don't want to have to show new-hires how to use Zoom, how to format a memo, how to write an email, or how to co-edit a document using OneDrive.
Dr. Darrin Cox
Professor of HistoryWest Liberty University
College of Liberal Arts
What general advice would you give to an Office Clerk?
Dr. Darrin Cox: Be open to new opportunities and be patient. Degrees in the humanities and social sciences don't just open a single door to a specific job like some others might. They open a wider array of doors that may not be as clearly defined in a recruiter's job placement or headspace. Remember, STEM fields might experience more initial salary, but overall they experience slower salary growth and higher attrition rates than those in the humanities and social sciences. Indeed, people specializing in degrees that train "soft skills" (like history) actually end up earning more than all other degrees on average, due in part to being able to slide more deftly into other positions because their skill set hasn't become obsolete as technology changed.*
*Nytimes
What experience really stands out on Office Clerk resumes?
Angela Robbins Ph.D.: History majors-and in fact, all students in the Humanities-practice skills in the classroom which have real-world, job performance implications, as laid out above. In my experience, students need to do a better job of communicating on their resumes what exactly those skills are so they do stand out. Job-seekers might list critical thinking skills, leadership skills, and the ability to work on a team on their resumes, for example, but for them to be able to point to specific examples from their classes and projects, and to be able to talk about those in interviews, is especially valuable. Internships also really stand out, because employers want to know that students have practiced these skills outside the classroom and have gained real-world experience, too.