Administrative Industry Overview

Serving a core function of business, administrative jobs are found at companies in nearly every sector of the US economy. Businesses of all sizes, from attorneys in solo practice to multinational corporations, offer jobs in administration. Industries offering the highest number of admin jobs include government agencies, hospitals, schools, and legal and medical offices.
Employers either hire directly for administration jobs or engage a staffing agency to source, screen and interview qualified admin job candidates.

Administrative Job Market

Administrative assistants and secretaries held slightly more than 4 million jobs in 2010, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Administrative/support job opportunities are expected to grow by 12 percent from 2010 to 2020, about as fast as the average for all occupations, the BLS reports. Close to 500,000 new administrative/support jobs are expected to open up over the forecast decade.

With computers radically streamlining many administrative functions -- from making travel reservations to entering data on spreadsheets –- administrative workers have maintained their value by taking on ever-more advanced tasks, such as analyzing spreadsheets and making complex purchasing decisions. Success in an administrative career is contingent on the ability to continuously learn new skills, especially with office productivity software.Virtual assistants, who perform office work for clients remotely, are a recent innovation in the admin/support field.

Common jobs in administrative/support include administrative assistant, office assistant, department secretary, legal secretary, medical secretary and executive assistant.

Administrative Salaries

Median annual wages of administrative assistants and secretaries, excluding legal, medical and executive secretaries, were $31,870 in May 2011, the BLS reports. The middle 50 percent earned between $25,350 and $39,440. The top 10 percent earned $47,670.