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Clerical support workers · code 4110

General office clerks

AI does data entry and routine letters. This is one of the most exposed jobs.

AI could take a fair chunk of seven of the eight tasks, including typing up and proofreading information and preparing invoices. Sorting and sending the post is mostly out of its reach.

What they actually do (and what else they get called)

General office clerks perform a range of clerical and administrative tasks according to established procedures. Tasks include - (a) recording, preparing, sorting, classifying and filing information; (b) sorting, opening and sending mail; (c) photocopying and faxing documents; (d) preparing reports and correspondence of a routine nature; (e) recording issue of equipment to staff; (f) responding to telephone or electronic inquiries or forwarding to appropriate person; (g) checking figures, preparing invoices and recording details of financial transactions made; (h) transcribing information onto computers, and proofreading and correcting copy. Examples of the occupations classified here: - General office clerk - Office clerk Note In distinguishing the work of general office clerks from that of workers classified in Unit Group 4120: Secretaries (general), it should be noted that the work of secretaries is primarily concerned with the transcription, formatting and processing of correspondence and other documentation. Whilst general office clerks may perform some work of this nature, the transcription and processing of documentation is not the main focus of the work.

  • office clerk

Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.

41 / 100

Changing significantly

AI could do a real share of the everyday tasks. The job is changing shape, not vanishing.

Not the odds you keep your job. It's how much of the everyday work still needs a person, out of 100.

← Robot's turf Human's turf →

The ILO's official verdict: Exposed: Gradient 4

415 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 8 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 59.5 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 59.5 = 40.5.

That's the whole sum. No black box, no secret sauce: you can check it against the ILO's study. ILO group “Exposed: Gradient 4”: The ILO’s highest group: nearly every task is affected.

This job rates 27.6 out of 100 for how hands-on it is. The score above only looks at AI tools, not robots, but for work this far from the physical that matters less.

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use

Man v Bot · compare

Who holds up better?

General office clerks 41

v

Go on, try your partner's job. Or your sibling's. We won't tell.

Man v Bot

Where the bot helps, and where the human wins

Bot

What AI takes

The routine stuff. You may not miss it.

  • Data entry.
  • Invoices and records.
  • Routine letters and reports.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Helping colleagues in person.
  • Sorting out problems.
  • Physical post and documents.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Office automation.
  • Operations and admin roles.
  • Checking automated work.

Written by a human, from the ILO's task ratings below. Yes, we see the irony. Read it as one person's take.

Meet your two rivals

They're not the same machine. AI software can only reach the parts of a job done on a screen or in words. A chatbot can't climb a ladder. A robot might, one day, if it doesn't fall off.

The AI

Lives in a screen. Never had to fix a boiler.

Threat level: Medium

54 could do without you

It could take over some of the work, and help with more. It could help with 64 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Lower

28 how hands-on

Not much of this job needs hands, so the robot can sit this one out.

So could a robot do the physical part?

Less than half of this job is hands-on. Robots still matter, but for a smaller part of the work, so we don't sort it any further.

Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 15 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

28 How
hands-on
15 How fiddly
and cramped

Kind of hands-on work Less than half hands-on

The small print

They aren't a robot score, and nothing on this page is. Nobody measures how far robots have got well enough to put a number on it. These are the closest thing we have: how hands-on the job is, and how much fiddly, cramped work it takes, which is what Frey and Osborne found hardest for machines.

From O*NET, averaged across 2 US jobs .

finger skill 17.9 · hand skill 16 · cramped spaces 10.3 · averaged · rule: hands-on under 50

estimated O*NET 31.0 BLS occupational crosswalk chain ISCO-08 to 2010 SOC (Aug 2012, rev. Jun 2015); 2010 to 2018 SOC (Nov 2017); O*NET-SOC 2019 taxonomy data 0.8-observed-use measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement

The job, task by task

Every job is really a bundle of tasks. Here's this one unpacked, with how much of each AI could do, out of 100. The score is the average, and averages can hide a lot.

AI's favourite task here scores 71, against an average of 60. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 71

    Transcribing information onto computers, and proofreading and correcting copy.

    Medium
  2. 69

    Checking figures, preparing invoices and recording details of financial transactions made

    Medium
  3. 65

    Preparing reports and correspondence of a routine nature

    Medium
  4. 63

    Responding to telephone or electronic enquiries or forwarding to appropriate person

    Medium
  5. 60

    Recording, preparing, sorting, classifying and filing information

    Medium
  6. 56

    Recording issue of equipment to staff

    Medium
  7. 54

    Photocopying and faxing documents

    Medium
  8. 39

    Sorting, opening and sending mail

    Low

8 tasks · the High to Very Low labels are the ILO's

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use

Sidekick or replacement?

A tool that makes you faster is a very different thing from one that does the task while you watch. Jobs and Skills Australia measured the two separately, which is handy.

AI helps you
64
AI does it for you
54

Sidekick wins, by 10 points.

How good a match is this?

2 Australian jobs match this one, and we've simply averaged them. Treat the numbers as a rough guide.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.8-observed-use matched to Australian jobs 5311, 5992

Meanwhile, in real life…

Everything else here is about what AI could do. This is what people actually did. When they asked Claude for help with this kind of work, did they hand the whole task over, or roll their sleeves up and work through it together?

Tiny sample alert This job makes up 0.01% of all the conversations: a tiny slice. People using AI for a job isn't the same as AI being able to do it.

Out of every 100 conversations

35
65

worked through it together handed it over

The small print

Anthropic publishes this about its own product, and it doesn't feed into any score here. These are people who use Claude, not workers in general, so little use here doesn't mean AI can't reach the job.

These two add up to 100. The bars elsewhere on the page don't, because each is scored on its own, so we don't put them side by side.

observed use Anthropic Economic Index release 2026-06-26, period beginning 2026-05-01 data 0.8-observed-use 2026-05-01 · Anthropic, about its own product

So, should office clerks be worried?

Short answer: not worried, but paying attention. The job is changing.

Yes, this is one of the most exposed jobs. Data entry, invoices, routine reports, enquiries, filing, equipment records and photocopying are rated Medium; mail is Low. Automation and AI already do much of this work.

Worth remembering: we score tasks, not jobs. When AI takes on a task, the job usually reshuffles around it rather than vanishing.

Where this job could lead

None of the new jobs we've written up start from here yet. Could be you're the first. See the jobs AI is creating →

How are the neighbours doing?

There are 29 jobs in the “Clerical support workers” family, averaging 47. This one is below the family average.

Pit this against any other job →