Is Administrative & Office Support a Good Job Market in Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI?

Executive Verdict

Market rating: competitive | Confidence: High

Detroit is still a workable market for Administrative & Office Support, but it is not an easy one. The metro had 208,230 office and administrative support jobs in May 2025, and the recent posting sample still shows more than 550 openings across more than 250 companies, so demand is real.[1][30] The catch is that Michigan-wide postings for this occupation family were down 4.8% year-over-year in July 2026 while employment was essentially flat, which usually points to replacement hiring more than broad expansion.[21][20] Most openings are entry-level and on-site, so the market favors candidates who can start quickly, work in person, and match a specific workflow such as scheduling, front desk, or executive support.[7][6][9]

Best positioned: Candidates with recent on-site experience in Microsoft Office, Excel or Word, data entry, appointment scheduling, and customer service, especially in healthcare-heavy or enterprise employers, have the best odds right now.[9][14][15]

Main caution: Do not assume remote or senior executive-support jobs represent the typical market; about 95% of sampled roles were on-site, and less than 5% were senior.[7][6]

What Changed Recently

• Michigan's July 2026 administrative and office support market looks softer on openings than on employment: employment was essentially flat year-over-year, but active postings were down 4.8%.[20][21]: That usually means employers still need people, but they are filling more backfill roles than creating lots of new ones.
• Fresh local employer signals appeared in late July and early August, including multiple administrative openings at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, executive administrative assistant roles tied to General Motors in Warren and Detroit, and a Dearborn administration and clerical hiring page from Walmart.[11][12][13]: If you want interviews in the next month, named employer pipelines matter more than waiting for one perfect listing.
• Recent local postings show a wide pay spread inside the same category, from $50,000 to $55,000 for an Office Administrative role in Oak Park to $69,616 to $95,416 for a Wayne County court administrative role in Detroit.[24][8]: Your target title and employer type now matter as much as your years of experience.
• Nationally, job openings were up 2.1516% year-over-year in June 2026, but hires were up only 0.3942% and quits were down 0.6761%.[22][25][26]: That combination usually means openings exist, but employers are moving more selectively and workers are holding onto jobs longer.
• A First Brands layoff notice published on May 19, 2026 affected 1,000 employees, with production stopping by July 2026 and full closure by September 2026.[27]: Even though that notice is not specific to admin roles, it can add competition from displaced support staff across the broader metro labor pool.

What This Means for You

Entry-Level Candidates

Difficulty: Moderate. There are many entry openings, but they skew on-site and often pay hourly rather than at the higher salaried end of the market.[6][7][4]

Best target: Target healthcare front-desk and scheduling-heavy roles first; about 50% of sampled postings came from healthcare, and common requirements include Microsoft Office, customer service, data entry, insurance verification, and appointment scheduling.[14][9]

Biggest mistake: Applying with a generic resume that sounds like general retail help instead of office workflow support.

Next step: Build a one-page resume version that foregrounds check-in volume, phone handling, scheduling, Word or Excel use, and accurate data entry.[9]

Mid-Career Candidates

Difficulty: High if you only target executive assistant or office manager titles; less than 5% of sampled postings were senior and less than 5% were lead+.[6]

Best target: Aim at executive-support roles inside government, courts, universities, and large enterprise employers, where pay can move above the category midpoint.[15][11][8]

Biggest mistake: Waiting for remote senior roles instead of competing for the in-person jobs that actually exist.

Next step: Create a second resume focused on executive support, stakeholder coordination, reporting, and discretion, then monitor Wayne County and U-M Dearborn weekly.[11][8]

Career Switchers

Difficulty: Moderate if you already have customer-facing experience; customer service is one of the most common requested skills, and many roles ask only for a high school diploma or equivalent.[9][29]

Best target: Target retail, fitness, food-service, and multi-site employers that need front-desk, store-office, or service-center support.[14][10]

Biggest mistake: Trying to jump straight into senior executive support without proof that you can manage office systems accurately.

Next step: Use a short proof project to show office-tool fluency: an Excel tracker, a scheduling template, and a clean data-entry sample.

Salary Reality

stable pay slow advancement

Observed local pay is mixed. BLS puts the Detroit metro mean at $24.48 per hour and $50,920 per year for the overall occupation group, while executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants average $76,390.[1] O*NET's local wages for secretaries and administrative assistants show a lower-end band of $33,950 to $38,300 for a narrower title group.[2] In recent posted-pay samples, local salary ranges center on about $48k to $60k, hourly roles center on about $16 to $19 / hour, and the local one-adult living wage is $22.17 / hour.[3][4][5]

This is a moderate-pay market. The average full-year benchmark sits close to MIT's local typical annual salary of $49,940, but many hourly postings cluster below the local living-wage line unless they offer enough hours or a path up.[5][4]

The upside is broad access, but the tradeoff is that the role mix is heavily entry-level and on-site, which limits leverage for candidates who need flexibility or want quick advancement.[6][7]

Best-paying path: The clearest pay upside sits in senior executive support and public-sector roles. A Wayne County Third Circuit Court opening posted $69,616 to $95,416, and local BLS data puts executive administrative assistants at $76,390 on average.[8][1]

Caution: Do not treat the top end as typical. Less than 5% of sampled postings were senior and less than 5% were lead+, so upper-end figures are real but scarce.[6]

Where the Opportunities Are Concentrated

Opportunity is concentrated less in a single company than in a few employer types. The recent sample shows more than 550 postings across more than 250 companies, and hiring is fragmented rather than dominated by one employer.[30][28] About 40% of sampled postings come from enterprise employers, which matters because these employers are more likely to have repeat openings, standardized workflows, and internal transfer paths.[15] Industry concentration matters more than employer concentration. About 50% of sampled postings sit in healthcare, followed by retail at about 15%, food & beverage at about 10%, and sports & recreation at about 10%.[14] Named active employers include Dominos, IHA Inc, Planet Fitness, Trinity Health MI, U-Haul International, and Dollar Express Stores LLC, while fresh local signals also show openings at U-M Dearborn, General Motors, and Walmart's Dearborn office page.[10][11][12][13] The higher-paying slice is narrower. Public-sector and executive-support openings exist, but they are not the center of this market, as shown by the very small senior share and the isolated higher-pay examples from Wayne County and select executive-assistant roles.[6][8][12]

• Healthcare front-desk and intake support (high): About 50% of sampled postings sit in healthcare, and the recurring skill mix includes insurance verification, appointment scheduling, data entry, Microsoft Office, and customer service.[14][9]
• Enterprise multi-site consumer and service employers (moderate): About 40% of sampled postings come from enterprise employers, with repeat activity from employers such as Dominos, Planet Fitness, U-Haul International, and Dollar Express Stores LLC.[15][10]
• Senior executive and public-sector support (limited): This is the better-paying lane, but it is narrower because less than 5% of sampled postings were senior, even though examples exist at Wayne County, U-M Dearborn, and General Motors.[6][8][11][12]

Where to focus: If you need speed, focus first on healthcare and enterprise service employers; if you already have 5+ years of office support experience, run a parallel search for public-sector and executive-support roles.

Skills and Credentials Worth Pursuing

• Microsoft Office (table stakes): Microsoft Office is one of the most common requested hard skills in local postings, so lacking it will block you before interview stage.[9]
• Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word (differentiator): Excel and Word appear repeatedly in the local skill mix, and they help separate true office workers from general customer-service applicants.[9]
• Customer service (table stakes): Customer service is one of the most-requested skills locally, which is why retail, hospitality, and call-handling experience can transfer well into office support.[9]
• Data entry accuracy (table stakes): Data entry shows up among the most common hard skills in local postings, so speed and error control are core screening criteria.[9]
• Appointment scheduling (differentiator): Scheduling is a recurring local requirement and is especially valuable because healthcare is the largest source of openings in the sample.[9][14]
• Insurance verification (differentiator): Insurance verification is frequently requested in local postings, and it aligns with the heavy healthcare share of the market.[9][14]
• Valid driver's license (differentiator): A valid driver's license appears as the most commonly mentioned credential in the sample, even if it is only required in about 5% of postings.[31]
• AI-assisted office productivity (premium): Employers nationally are paying a 4.1% wage premium for AI and machine-learning-related skills, so practical AI-assisted drafting, spreadsheet cleanup, and workflow support can help you stand out even in admin roles.[32]

Adjacent Roles to Consider

• Patient access representative (bridge): It is a logical bridge if your best admin matches are healthcare-heavy, especially if you already have scheduling, insurance verification, intake, and customer-service experience.[14][9]
• Accounts payable or payroll clerk (pivot): Office accuracy, documentation, and spreadsheet work transfer well into finance-adjacent back-office work.
• HR coordinator or recruiting coordinator (pivot): Scheduling, communication, and document handling transfer cleanly into people-ops support roles.
• Inventory or shipping coordinator (both): If your background is in general office support, dispatching, or service-center paperwork, operations support can be a practical next lane.

30 / 60 / 90-Day Plan

First 30 Days

• Split your search into two lanes: fast-entry on-site admin roles and higher-pay executive or public-sector roles.
• Rewrite your resume using the actual local keywords employers ask for: Microsoft Office, Word, Excel, data entry, customer service, appointment scheduling, and insurance verification.[9]
• Build a named-employer target list that includes IHA Inc, Trinity Health MI, Dominos, Planet Fitness, U-M Dearborn, General Motors, Wayne County, and Walmart's Dearborn office page.[10][11][12][13][8]
• Set your pay floor and commute rules before interviews; many hourly postings center on about $16 to $19 / hour and salaried postings center on about $48k to $60k.[4][3]

Days 31-60

• Create proof artifacts, not just claims: an Excel tracker, scheduling template, front-desk call script, and a clean data-entry sample.
• Run applications in batches to healthcare-heavy employers first, then enterprise consumer or service employers.[14][15]
• If you want better pay, stop applying only to generic administrative assistant titles and add court, university, and executive-support openings to your weekly list.[11][8]
• If you need sponsorship, address it early in your strategy; among postings that state a policy, about 0% mention visa sponsorship being available.[16]

Days 61-90

• If interviews remain low, pivot one search lane toward patient access or other healthcare-support-admin roles where scheduling and insurance verification transfer well.
• Or pivot toward payroll, accounts payable, or HR coordination only after adding a targeted skills block such as bookkeeping basics or HRIS exposure.
• Raise your salary ask only when the job is genuinely senior, executive-support, or public-sector; less than 5% of sampled postings were senior.[6]
• Track posting age and close stale bets quickly; the typical active posting has been open around 28 days.[17]

Methodology and Confidence

This July 2026 report was generated on August 10, 2026. Latest direct national data: August 2026. Latest direct Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI data: August 2026.

Confidence: Overall confidence: High. Local occupation pay data is directly observed, and recent employer signals are consistent enough to support practical job-search guidance.

Limitations

• The strongest direct local wage and employment anchor here is the BLS Detroit metro occupation release, but it reflects May 2025 conditions, so current hiring and pay can move faster than that benchmark.[1]
• Where July 2026 direction-of-hiring signals were needed, statewide occupation data was used as a proxy because comparable metro-level state-by-occupation series is not published; that helps with direction, but it is not a Detroit-only reading.[20][21]
• This category is broader than any one title, so figures for secretaries, executive assistants, reception, front desk, and general office work should be read as approximations for the family rather than exact pay for every sub-role.[1][2]
• The Callings.ai job database is a partial, deduplicated sample of online postings, so demand direction, leading employer names, and recurring skill patterns are more reliable than exact counts or exact shares within Detroit's administrative market.[30][10][3][9]
• Some recent year-over-year government indicators are preliminary, and the local layoff notice cited here is a broad labor-market risk signal rather than a role-specific count for administrative staff.[22][25][19][26][27]

References

1. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Employment and Wages in Detroit-Warren-Dearborn — May 2025 · 2026-07 · bls.gov
2. Onetonline. Local Wages: 43-6014.00 - Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive · 2026-08 · onetonline.org
3. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
4. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
5. Livingwage. Living Wage Calculator - Living Wage Calculation for Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI · 2026-08 · livingwage.mit.edu
6. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
7. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
8. Bebee. Administrative Assistant to the Chief Financial Officer - Wayne County Third Circuit Court · 2026-08 · bebee.com
9. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
10. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
11. Careers. Search Jobs | U-M Careers · 2026-08 · careers.umich.edu
12. Donewithwork. Administrative Assistant Jobs in Michigan — 10+ Jobs | DoneWithWork · 2026-07 · donewithwork.com
13. Walmart. Administration And Clerical-Dearborn,MI | Hiring | Walmart · 2026-07 · walmart.starcareer.us.com
14. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
15. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
16. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
17. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
18. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-04 · data.bls.gov
19. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-07 · data.bls.gov
20. Reveliolabs. Employment — Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-07 · reveliolabs.com
21. Reveliolabs. Job Openings — Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-07 · reveliolabs.com
22. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-06 · data.bls.gov
23. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-06 · data.bls.gov
24. Michiganhired. MichiganHired.com · 2026-08 · michiganhired.com
25. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-06 · data.bls.gov
26. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-06 · data.bls.gov
27. Facebook. Akron Beacon Journal · 2026-05 · facebook.com
28. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
29. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
30. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
31. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
32. Robert Half. Staffing, Recruitment & Job Search · 2026-06 · roberthalf.com

Live Openings in This Market

This report is published monthly; its companion page tracks the active Administrative & Office Support openings in Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI from the live Callings.ai job index. Browse current Administrative & Office Support openings in Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI.