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Clerical support workers · code 4120

Secretaries (general)

Secretaries (general) use typewriters, personal computers or other word processing equipment to transcribe correspondence and other documents, check and format documents prepared by other staff, deal with incoming and outgoing mail, screen requests for meetings or appointments, and perform a variety of administrative support tasks. Tasks include - (a) checking, formatting and transcribing correspondence, minutes and reports from dictation, electronic documents or written drafts to conform to office standards, using typewriter, personal computer or other word processing equipment; (b) using various computer software packages including spreadsheets to provide administrative support; (c) dealing with incoming or outgoing mail; (d) scanning, recording and distributing mail, correspondence and other documents; (e) screening requests for meetings or appointments and helping to organize meetings; (f) screening and recording staff members’ leave and other entitlements; (g) organizing and supervising filing systems; (h) dealing with routine correspondence on their own initiative. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Secretary - Typing secretary - Word processing secretary Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Administrative secretary - 3343 - Executive assistant - 3343 - Legal secretary - 3342 - Medical secretary - 3344

Most of the tasks are affected. It ranks 410 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • secretary

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

42.3
Holds up
against AI Exposed: Gradient 3

AI could take on 57.7 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 57.7 = 42.3

That's the whole sum, and you can check it against the ILO's study.

24.6
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, matched to one US job

16.3
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 23.1 · hand skill 19.7 · cramped spaces 6 · averaged

Kind of hands-on work · hands-on under 50 Less than half hands-on

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.

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 0.7-work-setting measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement

What this number leaves out This job rates 24.6 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.

The tasks behind the score

The score is the average of these. A job is really a bundle of tasks, and an average can hide how uneven that bundle is.

The task AI could do most of scores 76, while the average is 57.7. A big gap means some of this job is wide open to AI and some of it barely at all. That's quite different from a job where everything sits somewhere in the middle, even when the averages match.

  1. 76

    Screening requests for meetings or appointments and helping to organize meetings

    High
  2. 63.8

    Dealing with routine correspondence on their own initiative.

    Medium
  3. 63.5

    Checking, formatting and transcribing correspondence, minutes and reports from dictation, electronic documents or written drafts to conform to office standards, using typewriter, personal computer or other word processing equipment

    Medium
  4. 56

    Screening and recording staff-members' leave and other entitlements

    Medium
  5. 55

    Using various computer software packages including spreadsheets to provide administrative support

    Medium
  6. 55

    Organizing and supervising filing systems

    Medium
  7. 51.5

    Scanning, recording and distributing mail, correspondence and documents

    Medium
  8. 40.5

    Dealing with incoming or outgoing 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 0.7-work-setting

Helped, or replaced?

The score above can't tell a tool that makes you faster from one that does the task instead of you. Jobs and Skills Australia looked at those two things separately, and this is their result, matched to this job.

One Australian job matches this one closely, so this is about as reliable as it gets here.

AI helps you
69
AI does it for you
67

Helping wins by 2 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 5212

Compared with similar jobs

There are 29 jobs in the “Clerical support workers” group, averaging 46.7. This one is below that.