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Clerical support workers · code 4419

Clerical support workers not elsewhere classified

AI can write the reply and file the press cuttings. This is one of the most exposed jobs.

AI could take a fair chunk of all four tasks: taking classified ad orders, writing routine letters, finding and filing articles, and helping put publications together.

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

This unit group covers clerical support workers not classified elsewhere in Major Group 4: Clerical Support Workers. For instance, the group includes correspondence clerks, press clippers and publication clerks. In such cases tasks would include - (a) receiving customers’ orders for classified advertising, writing and editing copy, calculating advertising rates and billing customers; (b) writing business and government correspondence such as replies to requests for information and assistance, damage claims, credit and billing inquiries and service complaints; (c) assisting in the preparation of periodicals, advertisements, catalogues, directories and other material for publication; (d) reading newspapers, magazines, press releases and other publications to locate and file articles of interest to staff and clients. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Advertising clerk - Correspondence clerk - Directory compiler - Press clipper - Publication clerk

  • advertising assistant
  • foreign language correspondence clerk

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

37 / 100

Highly exposed to AI

AI could do much of the everyday work. The job doesn’t disappear, but in five years you might not recognise it.

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

422 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 4 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 62.8 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 62.8 = 37.2.

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 28.1 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?

Clerical support workers not elsewhere classified 37

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.

  • Routine correspondence.
  • Media monitoring.
  • Orders and billing.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Unusual requests.
  • Checking accuracy.
  • Helping colleagues.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • AI media monitoring.
  • Content operations 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 66 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 11 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

28 How
hands-on
11 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 18.7 · hand skill 8.9 · cramped spaces 6.5 · 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 67, against an average of 63. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 67

    Receiving customers' orders for classified advertising, writing and editing copy, calculating advertising rates and billing customers

    Medium
  2. 62

    Writing business and government correspondence such as replies to requests for information and assistance, damage claims, credit and billing enquiries and service complaints

    Medium
  3. 62

    Reading newspapers, magazines, press releases and other publications to locate and file articles of interest to staff and clients.

    Medium
  4. 61

    Assisting in the preparation of periodicals, advertisements, catalogues, directories and other material for publication

    Medium

4 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
66
AI does it for you
54

Sidekick wins, by 12 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 5619, 5999

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?

Out of every 100 conversations

60
40

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. This job makes up 0.43% of the conversations.

The data is sorted by US job, and this one matches 2 of them. We've combined them, counting each by how often it comes up in the conversations, so the busiest one counts most.

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 clerical support workers be worried?

Short answer: expect big changes. Better to steer them than be steered by them.

Yes, this is one of the most exposed jobs. Advertising orders, correspondence, finding and filing articles and preparing publications are all rated Medium. AI and automation 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 →