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Role hub · Office Clerks, General

Office Assistant: what the job is, what it pays, and how to get hired.

The work, the skills that matter, the tools in demand and the pay range, from U.S. government data, plus every TryHired page for the role.

Maid DizdarevicCareer coach · 8x LinkedIn Top Voice
Updated Nov 4, 2026 · Data: BLS OEWS May 2025 · O*NET 31.0
Pay ladder · select a percentile
Median percentile pay

Half of office assistants earn more than this and half earn less.

Annual
$45,010
Hourly
$21.64
Source
BLS May 2025
Quick answer

Office Assistants perform duties too varied and diverse to be classified in any specific office clerical occupation, requiring knowledge of office systems and procedures. The median pay is $45,010 a year ($21.64 an hour) (BLS, May 2025). The most commonly reported education requirement is a high school diploma or equivalent (41% of workers surveyed by O*NET).

Median pay
$45,010
BLS May 2025
Employed in the U.S.
2,464,940
BLS May 2025
Preparation
Job Zone 1-2 of 5
very little to some preparation
Most common education
High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED)
41% of workers

Data Government data groups this job as Office Clerks, General (O*NET-SOC 43-9061.00). Figures on this page are for that occupation.

Key facts

Office Assistants at a glance

  • Workers in the BLS occupation “Office Clerks, General” in the United States earned a median annual wage of $45,010 in May 2025, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

    Source: BLS OEWS, May 2025

  • In its 2025–35 employment projections, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics lists a high school diploma or equivalent as the typical entry-level education for workers in the BLS occupation “Office Clerks, General” in the United States.

    Source: BLS Employment Projections, 2025–35

  • BLS projects employment of workers in the BLS occupation “Office Clerks, General” in the United States to decline 6.0% from 2025 to 2035, with about 249,000 openings a year on average, including replacement openings.

    Source: BLS Employment Projections, 2025–35

  • BLS estimates that 10.6% of office clerks, general in the United States had the ability to telework in 2025, a preliminary estimate of whether the job allows it, not a count of remote jobs.

    Source: BLS Occupational Requirements Survey, 2025 preliminary

Explore the role

Every page for Office Assistants

SalaryOffice Assistant salary

Pay by percentile, state and metro, with a negotiation script.

Open →ResumeOffice Assistant resume

Keywords, bullet formulas and the skills to prove.

Open →Interview questionsOffice Assistant interview questions

Questions with what they test, plus practice mode.

Open →Free toolCheck your resume

Parsed text, evidence per bullet, fixes first.

Open →
The work

What office assistants do day to day

Data Core tasks rated most important by workers in the role (O*NET).

  1. Operate office machines, such as photocopiers and scanners, facsimile machines, voice mail systems, and personal computers.
  2. Answer telephones, direct calls, and take messages.
  3. Communicate with customers, employees, and other individuals to answer questions, disseminate or explain information, take orders, and address complaints.
  4. Maintain and update filing, inventory, mailing, and database systems, either manually or using a computer.
  5. Compile, copy, sort, and file records of office activities, business transactions, and other activities.
  6. Review files, records, and other documents to obtain information to respond to requests.
  7. Open, sort, and route incoming mail, answer correspondence, and prepare outgoing mail.
  8. Compute, record, and proofread data and other information, such as records or reports.
Skills that matter

Ranked by importance to the job

Data O*NET importance ratings. The first three are core.

Reading ComprehensioncoreActive ListeningcoreSpeakingcoreWritingSocial PerceptivenessCoordinationService OrientationTime ManagementCritical Thinking

Knowledge areas: Administrative, English Language, Customer and Personal Service, Administration and Management.

Tools and technology

Software office assistants use

Data Examples reported for the role; employer demand flags from O*NET.

  • Adobe InDesignDesktop publishing softwareHot technology
  • FacebookWeb page creation and editing softwareHot technology
  • Henry Schein DentrixMedical softwareHot technology
  • MEDITECH softwareMedical softwareHot technology
  • ADP Workforce NowHuman resources software
  • Billing softwareBilling and invoicing software
  • DropboxCloud-based data access and sharing software
  • Electronic Data Interchange EDI systemsEnterprise application integration software
  • Google DriveCloud-based data access and sharing software
  • Google SitesWeb page creation and editing software
  • LexisNexisInformation retrieval or search software
  • LinkedInWeb page creation and editing software

Also called: Administrative Clerk (Admin Clerk), Clerical Aide, Clerical Assistant, Clerk, General Clerk.

Method

How this page is built

Tasks, skills, tools, education and related roles come from O*NET 31.0. Pay and employment come from the BLS OEWS May 2025 national estimates. The skill-match score is our calculation: Skill match is the cosine similarity of the two occupations' skill profiles: for each of 35 O*NET skills (10 essential, 25 transferable) we multiply importance by level and subtract the average across all occupations, then compare the direction of the two profiles. 100 means identical shape; 0 means unrelated or opposite (negative values are shown as 0). Only occupations that O*NET itself lists as related are compared.

What this page can't tell you
  • How a specific employer defines the job.
  • Pay for self-employed workers (OEWS covers employees).
  • Your own chances: data describes the occupation, not you.
Sources
  1. O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under the CC BY 4.0 license. TryHired selected, ranked and combined the data; O*NET is not responsible for these pages.
  2. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 estimates (public domain).

How TryHired builds this data: sources, methods and downloads. Spotted an error? Report a correction.