Is Administrative & Office Support a Good Job Market in Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX?

Executive Verdict

Market rating: competitive | Confidence: High

Austin is still a real market for Administrative & Office Support, but it is not an easy one. Preliminary June 2026 BLS data shows Austin metro unemployment at 4.1%, with unemployment up 17.1429% year over year and total metro employment up only 0.1921% year over year.[11][14] Demand is broad rather than absent: we observed more than 650 postings across more than 300 companies over the last 90 days, and the core secretaries and administrative assistants group is slightly more concentrated locally than nationally, with a location quotient of 1.16 and about 13,000 workers in the metro baseline.[15][12] The bigger constraint is opening flow: Revelio Public Labor Statistics shows Texas administrative & office support postings down 10.8% year over year in July 2026, so employers are still hiring, but with less slack than a year ago.[21]

Best positioned: Your odds are best if you can work on-site, show customer service plus data entry plus Microsoft Office fluency, and target public-sector, education, healthcare, and operations-support openings across Austin and its suburban nodes.[10][2][6][3][4]

Main caution: The biggest mistake is reading this as a remote-friendly or sponsorship-friendly clerical market: about 90% of sampled roles are on-site, and among postings that state a policy, about 0% mention visa sponsorship.[2][30]

What Changed Recently

• Preliminary June 2026 BLS data shows Austin metro unemployment at 4.1%, with the unemployment level at 64,034, up 18.6474% year over year, while total metro employment rose only 0.1921% year over year.[11][13][14]: That usually means more applicants are chasing openings, even if the market is still functioning.
• Revelio Public Labor Statistics shows Texas administrative & office support postings down 10.8% year over year in July 2026 even as Texas postings across all occupations were up 1.2%.[21]: Administrative hiring is lagging the broader Texas job market, so generic apply-everywhere tactics are less effective now.
• Austin still showed more than 650 postings across more than 300 companies over the last 90 days, with hiring fragmented across employers rather than dominated by one firm.[15][27]: You are not waiting on one big employer cycle; success comes from targeting many smaller pools quickly.
• Current local examples show where the openings are: the Texas Department of State Health Services is a live public-sector hirer, Texas DPS posted an Austin administrative role at $3,512 per month, and Addison Group listed a contract-to-hire operations administrative assistant role in Dripping Springs at $25-$27 per hour.[37][3][4]: The most practical opportunities right now are not only downtown corporate assistant jobs; they include government and suburban operations-support work.
• National payrolls reached 158858 thousand in July 2026 and the national JOLTS openings rate was 4.4% in June 2026.[17][19]: The broader economy is still creating openings, but not fast enough to make Austin admin hiring feel loose.

What This Means for You

Entry-Level Candidates

Difficulty: Moderate to high. About 80% of sampled openings are entry-level, which creates volume but also heavy competition for the same pool of candidates.[1]

Best target: Target on-site admin assistant, front-desk, school, state-agency, and operations-support roles first; remote-first searches are too narrow in a market that is about 90% on-site.[2][3][4]

Biggest mistake: Assuming you need a bachelor's degree before applying. Among postings that state education, high school diploma or equivalent is the most common requirement, while bachelor's degrees show up in about 10%.[5]

Next step: Build one resume around customer service, data entry, Microsoft Office, and order processing, then apply broadly within commuting distance of Austin, Round Rock, San Marcos, and Dripping Springs.[6][4]

Mid-Career Candidates

Difficulty: Selective. Higher pay exists, but it clusters in executive assistant and office manager work rather than standard administrative assistant roles.[7]

Best target: Go after executive assistant, office manager, and business-support roles inside universities, semiconductors, life sciences, and state government.[7][8][3]

Biggest mistake: Using a generic clerical resume instead of showing calendar ownership, stakeholder support, vendor coordination, travel, and systems administration.

Next step: Add proof of advanced Excel and business-systems fluency, such as pivot-table reporting or ERP exposure, because those are the skills that separate mid-career candidates from commodity applicant pools.[9]

Career Switchers

Difficulty: Reasonable if you are coming from retail, hospitality, banking, call-center, or field-service work, because local postings heavily reward customer service, cash handling, inventory management, and order processing.[6]

Best target: Aim first for operations admin, public-facing office support, or healthcare front-office environments where your service background is an asset.[10][8][4]

Biggest mistake: Trying to leap straight into executive assistant openings before you have recent office software and scheduling examples.

Next step: Translate your past work into office language: scheduling, intake, records accuracy, handoffs, cash reconciliation, and inventory controls, then learn advanced Microsoft Office or an ERP workflow.[6][9]

Salary Reality

stable pay slow advancement

Observed local wage data for secretaries and administrative assistants in the Austin metro shows a median of $46,620, with a 25th-to-75th percentile range of $37,820 to $53,480 and a 90th-percentile figure of $61,880.[12] Newer proxy signals are higher for some sub-roles: Robert Half pegs Austin starting pay around $48,430 for administrative assistants, $45,240 for receptionists, $70,180 for office managers, and $81,490 for executive assistants, while the local posted-salary sample centers on about $50k to $70k and about $18 to $22 per hour for hourly roles.[7][39][40]

This is a middle-pay market. Austin does not look weak on baseline admin pay, but the better money is tied to role complexity, executive support, or office ownership rather than basic front-desk work.

The tradeoff is that most roles are on-site and junior, so you may be choosing between easier entry at lower pay or higher pay with much tighter screening.[2][1]

Best-paying path: The strongest pay tends to sit in executive assistant and office manager tracks, especially inside larger or more specialized organizations.[7]

Caution: Top-end salary figures mix together very different jobs. An $81,490 executive assistant target is not the same market as a receptionist role or a state administrative posting at $3,512 per month.[7][3]

Where the Opportunities Are Concentrated

Real opportunity is spread across a long tail, not one dominant employer. Over the last 90 days, we observed more than 650 postings across more than 300 companies in the Austin metro, and the sample is fragmented rather than concentrated.[15][27] The biggest industry pools were food & beverage at about 35%, healthcare at about 15%, retail at about 15%, hospitality at about 10%, and education at about 5%.[10] That mix means this category is not just downtown corporate assistant work. Local examples include Texas State University temporary administrative support in Round Rock, Texas Department of State Health Services hiring, a Texas Department of Public Safety admin role in Austin, employers like One Medical and the University of Texas at Austin, and a contract-to-hire operations admin assistant in Dripping Springs.[22][37][3][8][4] Executive-support jobs also showed up at the University of Texas at Austin and NXP Semiconductors, which matters for candidates trying to move above basic clerical work.[8] The catch is location and format: about 90% of sampled roles are on-site, and individual employers such as GPJ specify five days in the office.[2][38] If you can commute across central Austin and the suburban ring, you materially widen your odds.

• Consumer-facing clerical and admin (high): Food & beverage, retail, and hospitality together make up about 60% of the sampled industry mix, so employers often want customer service, cash handling, and fast transaction processing rather than pure back-office experience.[10][6]
• Public sector and higher education (high): Texas State University posted temporary administrative support in Round Rock, and Texas DPS posted an Austin administrative assistant role, showing steady institutional demand.[22][3]
• Executive support in technical employers (moderate): Local trackers show executive assistant and administrative assistant roles at the University of Texas at Austin, NXP Semiconductors, Danaher, and One Medical.[8]
• Suburban operations admin (moderate): Dripping Springs contract-to-hire operations admin work shows demand outside central Austin, especially where inventory, vendors, and field coordination matter.[4][6]

Where to focus: Prioritize on-site public-sector, higher-education, and operations-admin openings within a realistic commute, then use those roles to build toward executive assistant or office manager paths.

Skills and Credentials Worth Pursuing

• Microsoft Office and advanced Excel (table stakes): Local postings mention Microsoft Office in about 10% of sampled skill lists, and national guidance says the higher-value version is advanced Excel rather than basic familiarity.[6][9]
• Customer service and front-desk flow (table stakes): Customer service appears in about 25% of local postings and cash handling in about 20%, which tells you many Austin admin jobs are public-facing rather than purely clerical.[6]
• Data entry and order accuracy (table stakes): Data entry, order processing, and computer literacy all show up in the local skill mix, making accuracy a hiring filter even for lower-paid office roles.[6]
• ERP systems such as SAP or Oracle NetSuite (differentiator): National skills guidance for administrative assistants highlights ERP exposure as a key 2026 technical differentiator.[9]
• Applied AI workflow tools (premium): Administrative professionals with applied AI and data experience can earn up to 25% more than peers without those skills.[25]
• Cybersecurity awareness (differentiator): 2026 skills guidance increasingly treats cybersecurity awareness as part of modern administrative work because office staff handle systems access, documents, and sensitive communications.[9]
• Certified Administrative Professional (CAP) (differentiator): CAP remains a recognized credential for administrative professionals and is one of the clearer ways to stand out when your experience is otherwise hard to differentiate.[24]
• Valid driver's license (differentiator): A valid driver's license appears in about 5% of local postings, which is small overall but relevant for field-linked, suburban, and operations-heavy roles.[26]

Adjacent Roles to Consider

• Operations coordinator (both): Local admin postings already prize inventory management and order processing, and Austin has a live operations administrative assistant example in construction.[6][4]
• Medical front-office coordinator (pivot): Healthcare represents about 15% of sampled demand, and local openings have appeared with One Medical.[10][8]
• HR coordinator (pivot): Scheduling, records, communication, and confidentiality work transfer well from office support.
• Accounts payable or payroll assistant (bridge): The bridge is strongest if your background already emphasizes data entry, computer literacy, and spreadsheet accuracy.[6][9]

30 / 60 / 90-Day Plan

First 30 Days

• Split your resume into two versions: one for front-desk and customer-service admin work and one for executive-support and operations work, using local keywords like customer service, data entry, Microsoft Office, order processing, and inventory management.[6]
• Stop filtering for remote-only jobs. In Austin, about 90% of sampled openings are on-site, with only about 5% hybrid and about 5% remote.[2]
• Apply first to public-sector, education, healthcare, and suburban operations-admin roles, including Austin, Round Rock, San Marcos, and Dripping Springs examples.[22][8][3][4]
• Set a pay floor before you apply: standard admin assistant roles cluster around the high-$40k range, while reception is lower and executive support is much higher.[7][12]

Days 31-60

• Produce proof of software depth: one Excel sample with pivot tables, one calendar or travel workflow example, and one short description of any CRM, ERP, or scheduling system you have used.[9]
• Target fast enough to beat the posting clock. Typical active postings stay open around 30 days, so re-check saved searches at least twice a week.[23]
• If you lack office experience, build a small portfolio with a meeting agenda pack, a clean spreadsheet tracker, and a short business email set to show you can already do the work.
• Practice a results story for interviews: how you reduced scheduling errors, improved intake, handled confidential information, or kept front-desk traffic moving.

Days 61-90

• If callbacks are weak, pivot toward operations coordinator, medical front-office, HR coordinator, or accounts-payable-adjacent roles where your admin foundation still transfers.
• Add a recognizable credential only if it sharpens your target. CAP is the clearest broad admin credential; otherwise, prioritize Excel or ERP fluency over collecting general certificates.[24][9]
• For higher pay, reposition toward executive assistant or office manager paths by documenting stakeholder support, vendor management, meeting prep, and office ownership outcomes.[7]
• If you need immediate income, use contract-to-hire openings as an entry route; Austin currently shows that path in operations admin roles paying $25-$27 per hour.[4]

Methodology and Confidence

This July 2026 report was generated on August 10, 2026. Latest direct national data: July 2026. Latest direct Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX data: August 2026.

Confidence: Overall confidence: High. Based on 11 direct local occupation data points and 25 total local evidence items with recent coverage.

Limitations

• The freshest direct Austin labor-market readings in this report stop at June 2026, and the main local occupation wage anchor for secretaries and administrative assistants is from May 2025, so current openings can move faster than the official pay tables shown above.[11][12]
• Several June 2026 Austin and Texas year-over-year government readings are preliminary, so small changes in unemployment and employment may be revised later.[11][13][14]
• This category is represented here through titles such as administrative assistant, receptionist, office manager, and executive assistant, so niche office jobs can be unevenly represented, and medical billing, accounting clerk, warehouse clerk, and HR assistant work is intentionally excluded from this page.
• The Callings.ai job database is a partial, deduplicated sample of online postings, so direction of demand, leading employer names, and skill patterns are more reliable here than exact posting counts or employer shares.[15][16][10][2][1][6]
• Some local examples in this report are single live openings or salary-guide estimates rather than full-market averages, so treat them as signals about where Austin hiring is happening, not as a census of every administrative job in the metro.[7][3][4]

References

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4. Addisongroup. Operations Administrative Assistant Job » Apply Today | Addison Group · 2026-08 · addisongroup.com
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8. Donewithwork. Administrative Assistant Jobs in Austin, TX — 9+ Jobs | DoneWithWork · 2026-08 · donewithwork.com
9. Abmcollege. Top 13 Administrative Assistant Skills in 2026 | ABM College · 2026-04 · abmcollege.com
10. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
11. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-06 · data.bls.gov
12. Onetonline. Texas Wages: 43-6014.00 - Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive · 2025-05 · onetonline.org
13. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-06 · data.bls.gov
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31. Theverge. ZeniMax Media laid off 158 workers in Texas as part of this week’s Xbox cuts. · 2026-07 · theverge.com
32. Warntracker. Charter Communications,LLC Lays Off 112 Workers — Austin, TX WARN Notice September 2026 · 2026-07 · warntracker.com
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34. Citizenportal. Council keeps three positions on hiring freeze, asks for flexibility amid staffing shortfalls · 2026-07 · citizenportal.ai
35. Austinchronicle. CapMetro Employees Threaten to Go on Strike • The Austin Chronicle · 2026-08 · austinchronicle.com
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Live Openings in This Market

This report is published monthly; its companion page tracks the active Administrative & Office Support openings in Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX from the live Callings.ai job index. Browse current Administrative & Office Support openings in Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX.