Is Administrative & Office Support a Good Job Market in Kansas City, MO-KS?

Executive Verdict

Market rating: balanced | Confidence: High

Kansas City is still a viable market for Administrative & Office Support, but it is not a loose one. The metro unemployment rate was 3.7% in June 2026, total nonfarm employment was up 0.8% over the year, and the local market still showed more than 450 recent office-support postings across more than 200 companies.[36][21][33] The catch is that Missouri administrative and office-support employment was essentially flat in July 2026, statewide postings for the category were down 3.6% year over year, and Kansas City professional and business services employment fell 1.1013% year over year in June 2026.[22][16][17] That points to a market where solid on-site generalists can still land roles, but remote seekers and candidates aiming only at higher-end white-collar assistant jobs should expect a slower search.

Best positioned: Candidates with recent on-site admin experience, strong Microsoft Office skills, and willingness to work in healthcare, hospitality, public-sector, or customer-facing settings have the best odds right now.[8][32][7]

Main caution: The biggest mistake is assuming this is a remote-friendly office market; about 95% of local postings are on-site and less than 5% are remote.[7]

What Changed Recently

• Kansas City total nonfarm employment reached 1,181.9 thousand in June 2026, up 0.8% over the year, but professional and business services employment fell 1.1013% year over year.[21][17]: The metro economy is still growing, but part of the office-heavy employer base is softer than the headline market suggests.
• Revelio Public Labor Statistics shows Missouri administrative & office support employment essentially flat year over year in July 2026, with active postings down 3.6%.[22][16]: That usually means replacement hiring is still happening, but broad category expansion is limited.
• Local office-support work is overwhelmingly site-based: about 95% of Kansas City postings were on-site, about 5% hybrid, and less than 5% remote, while nationally 87% of new roles were fully in-office in Q2 2026.[7][23]: If you are holding out for remote admin work, you are cutting yourself off from most of the real market.
• Recent live examples span The University of Kansas Health System, the City of Kansas City, MO, and Polsinelli, pointing to clinic, public-sector, and legal-specialty demand rather than one dominant employer type.[8][24][9]: A sector-specific resume is likely to outperform a generic administrative-assistant application.
• National job openings were 7,359 thousand in June 2026, up 2.1516% year over year, but quits were down 0.6761% and the quits rate was 2%.[25][26][27]: Openings still exist, but slower voluntary movement can make replacement roles recycle more slowly.

What This Means for You

Entry-Level Candidates

Difficulty: Moderate.

Best target: Target on-site front-desk, clinic-support, hospitality, and education roles before pure executive-assistant jobs; the local mix is strongest in healthcare, food & beverage, hospitality, and education, and about 80% of postings are entry level.[32][6]

Biggest mistake: Applying only to remote jobs or only to polished corporate-assistant titles.

Next step: Build two resumes now: one for customer-facing/site-based admin work and one for more formal office support, then apply in batches by sector instead of by title alone.

Mid-Career Candidates

Difficulty: Moderate to high.

Best target: Aim for office manager, sector-specialized admin, public-sector assistant, and legal or clinic support roles where workflow ownership matters more than generic availability.[8][24][9]

Biggest mistake: Leading with years of experience alone instead of showing what you can own: calendars, vendor follow-up, document control, expense work, and team coordination.

Next step: Rewrite your resume around outcomes and systems used, and prepare three short examples that show you prevented delays, handled executive or client requests, or cleaned up messy workflows.

Career Switchers

Difficulty: Moderate.

Best target: If you come from retail, hospitality, or customer-facing operations, target site-based admin roles that value customer service, cash handling, order processing, and computer literacy.[10][32]

Biggest mistake: Positioning yourself as a beginner when you already have transferable scheduling, service, and paperwork experience.

Next step: Translate prior work into office language: intake, documentation, scheduling, escalation handling, payment accuracy, and shift or inventory coordination.

Salary Reality

stable pay slow advancement

The cleanest local anchor is BLS: office and administrative support occupations in Kansas City had a mean wage of $23.45 an hour in May 2024.[1] More recent local posting data centers annual pay on about $50k to $65k, with a broader band of about $40k to $70k, and hourly-paid roles centering on about $16 to $19 an hour.[2][3] As a directional cross-check, Revelio Public Labor Statistics shows mean offered salary on new Missouri openings at about $49,710 in July 2026 (n=1,577), versus about $54,034 nationally (n=170,622).[4]

That is decent but not exceptional pay for Kansas City. Missouri's cost-of-living index was 88.6 in the first quarter of 2026, so local admin pay can stretch further than it would in a higher-cost metro.[5]

The tradeoff is that most openings are entry skewed and on-site, which limits bargaining power unless you bring specialization or workflow ownership. About 80% of local postings sit at entry level, and about 95% are on-site.[6][7]

Best-paying path: The best odds of reaching the upper end of the local posted band are in executive-assistant, office-manager, legal-support, and specialized clinic-based administrative work rather than front-desk or cash-handling-heavy roles.[2][8][9][10]

Caution: Do not overread the top end of posted ranges. Nationally, BLS put the annual mean for the broader office-support family at $51,560 in 2025 and the median at $60,060, while a 2026 office-support outlook says salary growth has been largely flat into 2026.[11][12][13]

Where the Opportunities Are Concentrated

The opportunity set is real but scattered. Over the last 90 days, the local sample showed more than 450 Administrative & Office Support postings across more than 200 companies, and hiring was fragmented rather than concentrated in a few dominant employers.[33][29] Large employers account for about 45% of sampled postings and enterprise employers about 25%, so many openings sit inside structured organizations with standard screening and site-based expectations.[34] Where the demand sits is not purely corporate office work. The most active industries in the sample were food & beverage at about 25%, healthcare at about 25%, hospitality at about 20%, education at about 10%, and retail at about 5%.[32] The skill mix also leans practical and customer-facing: cash handling, customer service, order processing, computer literacy, and data entry all show up frequently, so the category currently overlaps with front-desk, service-desk, and operations-support work more than many job seekers expect.[10] Recent openings reinforce that pattern: The University of Kansas Health System posted an ambulatory administrative assistant role, the City of Kansas City, MO posted an administrative assistant opening in public works, and Polsinelli posted a legal administrative assistant role in Kansas City, MO.[8][24][9] In practice, that means you should search by sector and work setting, not just by title, because administrative assistant can mean clinic coordination, municipal paperwork, law-firm document support, or customer-facing office coverage.

• Healthcare and clinic support (high): Healthcare makes up about 25% of the local sample, and The University of Kansas Health System is actively hiring an ambulatory administrative assistant in the metro.[32][8]
• Customer-facing office support in hospitality, food, and retail-adjacent settings (high): Food & beverage accounts for about 25% of the sample and hospitality about 20%, with customer service and cash handling showing up often in skill requirements.[32][10]
• Public-sector and utility administration (moderate): The City of Kansas City, MO posted an administrative assistant opening tied to its Water Department, showing that municipal and infrastructure-linked admin work is part of the market.[24]
• Legal and professional-services support (moderate): Professional-services hiring is softer overall, but Polsinelli still posted a legal administrative assistant opening in Kansas City, MO, suggesting narrower but higher-value specialty lanes remain open.[17][9]

Where to focus: Focus first on on-site roles in healthcare, public-sector support, and customer-facing office settings, then use those searches to uncover better-paying specialty lanes.

Skills and Credentials Worth Pursuing

• Microsoft Office suite (table stakes): A current Kansas City clinic opening requires Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access, which makes office-software fluency a baseline screen rather than a bonus.[8]
• Customer service and front-desk handling (table stakes): Customer service shows up in about 25% of local postings, and the local mix is heavy in hospitality, healthcare, and food-service settings where admin work is public-facing.[10][32]
• Data entry and computer literacy (table stakes): Computer literacy appears in about 15% of local postings and data entry in about 10%, so even lower-paid roles still expect speed and accuracy with routine digital workflows.[10]
• Expense reports, reconciliation, and document proofreading (differentiator): A recent Kansas City legal administrative assistant posting emphasized file management, timesheets, expense reports, credit card reconciliation, and proofreading, which signals extra value for candidates who can support billing-adjacent or professional-services workflows.[9]
• Calendar architecture and cross-department scheduling (differentiator): Employer guidance for 2026 highlights hybrid coordination, calendar architecture, and cross-department scheduling as rising needs in administrative work.[18]
• AI-assisted workflow tools (premium): Current 2026 guidance points to Microsoft Copilot, Notion AI, Otter.ai, Zapier, Claude, and ChatGPT as emerging tools for email drafting, meeting summaries, and workflow automation in administrative roles.[31]
• Valid driver's license (differentiator): Formal certifications are uncommon in this market, but a valid driver's license is one of the few credentials that appears at all in local postings, especially for field-linked or site-coverage roles.[37]

Adjacent Roles to Consider

• Medical office coordinator or patient-access support (both): Clinic-based administrative work uses the same scheduling, front-desk, and software skills, and The University of Kansas Health System is actively hiring an ambulatory administrative assistant in the metro.[8]
• Billing coordinator or accounts-payable clerk (pivot): A recent local legal-admin posting emphasized expense reports, timesheets, and reconciliation, which is a natural bridge into finance-support work.[9]
• Recruiting coordinator or people-ops coordinator (pivot): If your strength is interview scheduling, calendar control, and communication, people-ops coordination is a logical neighbor as admin work shifts toward coordination-heavy tasks.[18][19]
• Purchasing assistant or procurement coordinator (both): Inventory management and order processing show up in the local skill mix, and national business-support guidance still lists purchasing assistant among in-demand neighboring roles.[10][20]

30 / 60 / 90-Day Plan

First 30 Days

• Split your resume into at least two versions: customer-facing/site-based admin and formal office support.
• Apply by sector, not only by title: healthcare, municipal/public-sector, hospitality, and education should each get their own search and resume keywords.
• Prepare a proof bundle with one polished calendar example, one meeting-notes sample, and one expense or document-control example.
• Set a strict filter for commute, shift pattern, and site expectations so you do not waste time on roles you would decline.

Days 31-60

• Add one specialty layer to your profile: clinic scheduling, document-heavy legal support, public-sector paperwork, or billing-adjacent coordination.
• Practice faster software execution, especially spreadsheets, Outlook rules, templates, and document formatting.
• Create a short interview story bank around conflict handling, scheduling collisions, deadline recovery, and multitasking under interruptions.
• If applications are not converting, pivot some volume into adjacent categories like patient access, billing support, recruiting coordination, or purchasing support.

Days 61-90

• If you are still getting mostly low-wage hits, narrow toward specialty admin lanes instead of sending more generic applications.
• Use contract, temp-to-hire, or sector-entry roles to get recent office experience if your resume lacks it.
• Aim for roles where you own a workflow, not just answer phones, because that is the clearest path to better pay and durability.
• Reassess your search mix: if remote is still your top filter, replace it with hybrid or site-based filters or move your pivot fully into an adjacent category.

Methodology and Confidence

This July 2026 report was generated on August 10, 2026. Latest direct national data: October 2026. Latest direct Kansas City, MO-KS data: August 2026.

Confidence: Overall confidence: High. Based on 10 direct local occupation data points and 12 total local evidence items with recent coverage.

Limitations

• The best local occupation wage benchmark is from May 2024, so current pay expectations rely partly on newer posting-based salary signals rather than a fully current government wage series for Kansas City.[1][2][4]
• Several year-over-year figures used here, including Kansas City professional and business services employment and national payroll and openings measures, are preliminary and may be revised later.[17][14][25][26]
• Some occupation-direction signals come from statewide Missouri data because comparable metro-level monthly occupation series is not published for Kansas City in the sources used here.[22][16]
• Representative titles such as administrative assistant, receptionist, office manager, and customer service representative cover a broad family of work, so conditions can differ meaningfully between customer-facing front-desk jobs and higher-end executive or legal support roles.[1][10][9]
• The Callings.ai job database used here is a partial, deduplicated sample of online postings, so it is more reliable for spotting leading employers, work arrangement patterns, and skill themes than for treating every count or percentage as a full census of Kansas City openings.[33][35][7][10]

References

1. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Employment and Wages in Kansas City — May 2024 · 2025-06 · bls.gov
2. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
3. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
4. Reveliolabs. Salaries — Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-07 · reveliolabs.com
5. Mo. Home | MO.gov · 2026-04 · mo.gov
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. Jobs. Administrative Assistant - Ambulatory at The University of Kansas Health System · 2026-08 · jobs.kansashealthsystem.com
9. Jobs. Legal Administrative Assistant - Real Estate job at Polsinelli in Kansas City, Missouri | Justia Legal Jobs · 2026-07 · jobs.justia.jobs
10. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
11. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · data.bls.gov
12. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · data.bls.gov
13. Sigmarrecruitment. Office Support Job Market Outlook 2026: Skills Versatility, Hybrid Demand and Hiring Pressures · 2026-01 · sigmarrecruitment.com
14. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-07 · data.bls.gov
15. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-04 · data.bls.gov
16. Reveliolabs. Job Openings — Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-07 · reveliolabs.com
17. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-06 · data.bls.gov
18. Robert Half. Staffing, Recruitment & Job Search · 2025-10 · roberthalf.com
19. Ema. Top 10 AI Executive Assistant Tools for 2026 · 2026-05 · ema.ai
20. Reed. Business support & administration professional salary guide 2026 · 2026-01 · reed.com
21. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Over-the-year change in total nonfarm employment for metropolitan areas, not seasonally adjusted · 2026-08 · bls.gov
22. Reveliolabs. Employment — Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-07 · reveliolabs.com
23. Robert Half. Remote work statistics and trends for 2026 · 2026-08 · roberthalf.com
24. Careersingovernment. Jobs | Careers in Government · 2026-07 · careersingovernment.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. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-06 · data.bls.gov
28. Reveliolabs. Mass-layoff Notices — Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-07 · reveliolabs.com
29. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
30. Aijobsecurity. Aijobsecurity - ai_exposure_administrative_assistants_ilo · 2026-07 · aijobsecurity.com
31. Canaistealmyjob. 7 AI Tools for Administrative Assistants in 2026 – Complete Guide - Can AI Steal My Job · 2026-07 · canaistealmyjob.com
32. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
33. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
34. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
35. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai
36. Stlouisfed. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis · 2026-07 · stlouisfed.org
37. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-07 · callings.ai

Live Openings in This Market

This report is published monthly; its companion page tracks the active Administrative & Office Support openings in Kansas City, MO-KS from the live Callings.ai job index. Browse current Administrative & Office Support openings in Kansas City, MO-KS.