Is Administrative & Office Support a Good Job Market in Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD?

Executive Verdict

Market rating: competitive | Confidence: Medium

This is a real market, but not an easy one. Philadelphia still has a very large office-support base with 341,510 jobs, and metro unemployment was 4.1% in May 2026 while overall metro employment was up 2.0725% year over year.[10][11][12] But Pennsylvania occupation-level signals are softer: Revelio Public Labor Statistics shows administrative & office support employment essentially flat year over year and active postings down 1.8% in June 2026, while national postings in the field were down 3.5%.[13][14] That adds up to openings being available, but employers can be selective—especially because most local postings are on-site and skew entry-level.[15][6]

Best positioned: Your odds are best if you can work on-site and show customer-facing admin experience, Microsoft Office, data entry accuracy, and comfort supporting healthcare or food-service environments, which are the two biggest local demand pockets in the sample.[8][15][1]

Main caution: Do not mistake a big employment base for easy access: much of the local demand looks front-desk, service-linked, and in-person rather than classic remote corporate assistant work, and less than 5% of sampled postings are remote.[15][1]

What Changed Recently

• Metro labor conditions remained fairly steady: unemployment was 4.1% in May 2026, down 4.6512% year over year, while metro employment rose 2.0725%.[11][12]: That supports ongoing replacement hiring, but it does not mean office-support hiring is broadly expanding because statewide occupation-specific demand is softer.[13][14]
• In Pennsylvania, administrative & office support employment was essentially flat year over year in June 2026, and active postings for the occupation were down 1.8%.[13][14]: For job seekers, that usually means more competition for standard assistant, receptionist, and clerk openings and more value in specialization.
• Local posted pay centered on about $53k to $70k for salaried roles and about $18 to $21 / hour for hourly roles over the last 90 days, while Philadelphia-area CPI was up 4.8% over the year ending in April 2026.[9][34][22]: Pay is workable, but commuting and living costs matter more than the headline salary range when so much of this market is on-site.[15]
• Nationally, the JOLTS job openings rate was 4.6% in May 2026, but the hires rate was 3.3% and down 2.9412% year over year, while the quits rate was 1.9% and down 9.5238%.[20][21][35]: Openings still exist, but employers are filling carefully and fewer people are leaving jobs, so replacement slots can take longer to appear.
• AI use among administrative professionals rose from 26% in 2024 to 53% in 2025, and employers are prioritizing critical thinking and problem solving as AI tools spread.[2][3]: Candidates who can show AI-assisted scheduling, drafting, note cleanup, and workflow organization now have a clearer edge than generic admin applicants.

What This Means for You

Entry-Level Candidates

Difficulty: Moderate to high. The market has many junior seats, but about 75% of sampled openings are entry-level and the most common stated education requirement is high school or equivalent, so the applicant pool is likely broad.[6][7]

Best target: Target on-site receptionist, front-desk, office clerk, and admin coordinator openings in healthcare and food & beverage, which each account for about 30% of sampled demand, and lead with customer service, Microsoft Office, and data-entry basics.[8][1]

Biggest mistake: Applying only to remote executive-assistant jobs or assuming a degree alone will separate you.

Next step: Build one resume version for customer-facing front-office work and one for general office support, then attach a simple proof pack: Outlook scheduling, Excel tracker, Word formatting, and one example of clean, accurate data entry.

Mid-Career Candidates

Difficulty: High if you present yourself as generic support; better if you sell coordination, reporting, vendor handling, scheduling ownership, and office-systems control.

Best target: Aim for office manager, executive assistant, and admin coordinator roles where local posted pay sits closer to the top of the about $53k to $70k band and AI/data fluency can improve your ceiling.[9][2]

Biggest mistake: Listing duties instead of showing that you improved a process, protected an executive's time, or ran an office workflow end to end.

Next step: Rewrite your resume around business outcomes: calendar compression, error reduction, vendor turnaround time, meeting prep quality, reporting cadence, and any AI-assisted productivity gain you can explain clearly.

Career Switchers

Difficulty: Moderate if you already come from customer-facing operations, hospitality, retail, education support, or service coordination.

Best target: Front desk, scheduling, reception, and coordinator roles in healthcare, hospitality, retail, and food-service settings are the most realistic bridge roles here.[8][1]

Biggest mistake: Keeping your old title language and not translating it into office terms like scheduling, records accuracy, customer communication, and issue resolution.

Next step: Translate prior work into admin language with numbers: appointments booked, calls handled, order errors reduced, customers served, cash or records reconciled, and software used.

Salary Reality

stable pay slow advancement

Observed local worker pay is $24.93/hour for the metro office and administrative support group, while recent local posted ranges center on about $53k to $70k for salaried roles and about $18 to $21 / hour for hourly roles.[10][9][34] As directional benchmarks, Mean offered salary on new openings was ~$48,108 in Pennsylvania (n=2,802) and ~$53,675 nationally (n=174,857) in June 2026 per Revelio Public Labor Statistics.[28]

This is not a low-wage niche, but it is also not a fast route to premium pay. In Philadelphia, the better read is stable mid-range compensation rather than breakout earnings, especially with local inflation up 4.8% over the year ending in April 2026.[22]

Administrative openings pay well below the statewide all-occupation offered average of ~$72,291, and about 90% of the local sample is on-site, so commuting cost and schedule rigidity offset some of the pay stability.[28][15]

Best-paying path: The strongest pay tends to sit in salaried coordinator, office manager, and executive-support roles that combine Microsoft Office, reporting, customer-facing communication, and newer AI/data skills; Robert Half says workers with AI and data experience can earn up to 25% more.[1][2]

Caution: Top-end posted ranges usually reflect broader responsibility, better-funded employers, or more experienced candidates, so they should not be read as the normal outcome in a market where about 75% of sampled openings are entry-level.[9][6]

Where the Opportunities Are Concentrated

Real opportunity is spread across many employers rather than one dominant buyer. Over the last 90 days, the sample captured more than 950 postings across more than 450 companies, and hiring was fragmented rather than concentrated.[29][17] The openings are not evenly distributed across admin subtypes. Food & beverage and healthcare each made up about 30% of sampled demand, followed by retail at about 15%, hospitality at about 10%, and education at about 5%.[8] The skills mix also skews practical and customer-facing: customer service leads at about 30%, with Microsoft Office at about 15%, and data entry, communication, order processing, and order taking each around about 10%.[1] That pattern suggests the easiest wins are on-site, service-linked support jobs rather than pure corporate back-office assistant roles. About 90% of postings are on-site, about 75% are entry-level, and a typical active posting stays open around 29 days.[15][6][16]

• Healthcare front office and patient-facing admin (high): Healthcare represents about 30% of sampled local demand, making scheduling, reception, intake, and general office coordination one of the clearest target lanes here.[8]
• Food service, restaurant, and retail support (high): Food & beverage accounts for about 30% of sampled demand and retail about 15%, with strong overlap in customer service, order processing, and site-based coordination skills.[8][1]
• Classic corporate executive assistant and office manager seats (limited): These roles exist, but they are a smaller slice of the market; only about 5% of sampled openings are senior and less than 5% are lead+.[6]

Where to focus: Start with on-site coordinator, front-office, and customer-facing admin roles in healthcare and food service, then stretch into office manager or executive-support roles once your resume shows systems ownership and business impact.[8][15][1]

Skills and Credentials Worth Pursuing

• Customer service (table stakes): It is the most-requested skill in the local sample at about 30%, so it matters for receptionist, front-desk, and service-heavy admin work.[1]
• Microsoft Office (table stakes): Microsoft Office appears in about 15% of sampled postings and remains the basic operating system for mainstream admin roles.[1]
• Data entry accuracy (table stakes): Data entry shows up in about 10% of sampled local demand and is one of the clearest proof-of-reliability skills for admin hiring managers.[1]
• Prompt engineering and AI workflow use (differentiator): Writing effective prompts is identified as a key AI skill for administrative assistants, and AI use among administrative professionals rose from 26% in 2024 to 53% in 2025.[2]
• Critical thinking and problem solving (premium): Employers are prioritizing these skills as AI tools spread through office work, because admins are increasingly expected to judge, clean up, and route information instead of just transcribing it.[3]
• Certified Administrative Professional (CAP) (differentiator): CAP is a recognized credential covering organizational communication, business writing, records management, and office technology.[4]
• Professional Administrative Certification of Excellence (PACE) (differentiator): PACE focuses on practical skills for handling time-sensitive tasks in high-pressure environments, which fits office manager and executive-support pathways.[5]
• Bilingual ability, especially Spanish (differentiator): Bilingual ability, especially Spanish, is increasingly in demand for administrative professionals and can be especially useful in customer-facing local roles.[2]

Adjacent Roles to Consider

• Patient access representative / medical front office coordinator (bridge): Healthcare makes up about 30% of the sampled local demand, so patient-facing scheduling and intake can be a natural bridge from receptionist or front-desk work.[8]
• HR coordinator / recruiting coordinator (pivot): Administrative strengths transfer well to interview scheduling, document handling, calendar management, and stakeholder communication.
• Accounts payable clerk / billing coordinator (pivot): Data entry, records handling, and order or invoice workflow overlap with the local skill mix, making this a practical step for detail-oriented admin candidates.[1]
• Project coordinator (both): Administrative work is becoming more strategic and tech-enabled, and AI-assisted documentation, scheduling, and follow-up are moving into mainstream support work.[2][33]

30 / 60 / 90-Day Plan

First 30 Days

• Split your resume into two versions: one for front-desk and customer-facing admin work, and one for coordinator and office-systems work.
• Prioritize on-site and hybrid searches within your real commute radius, because about 90% of sampled roles are on-site, about 10% are hybrid, and less than 5% are remote.[15]
• Apply quickly to fresh roles instead of saving them for later; the typical active posting has already been open around 29 days.[16]
• Create a small proof pack you can send with applications: calendar management screenshot, Excel tracker, polished Word document, and one before-and-after AI-assisted meeting-note cleanup example.

Days 31-60

• Complete one recognizable credential path or prep plan, such as CAP or PACE, if you do not already have title-matched experience.[4][5]
• Build a target list by industry, not just job title: healthcare, food & beverage, retail, and hospitality are where the local sample is concentrated.[8]
• Add measurable admin outcomes to your resume and LinkedIn profile: calls handled, schedules maintained, records accuracy, turnaround time, customer satisfaction, or vendor issues resolved.
• Practice a short interview story showing how you use Microsoft Office plus AI tools to save time without introducing errors.

Days 61-90

• If your callback rate is still weak, pivot toward adjacent roles such as patient access, HR coordination, accounts payable, or project coordination rather than repeating the same general admin search.
• For better-paying roles, rebrand yourself around ownership: office systems, executive support, reporting cadence, vendor coordination, or multi-site scheduling.
• Use the employer mix to widen your list beyond prestige brands; this market is fragmented, so a broad employer set matters more than chasing one company.[17]
• If you have bilingual ability or strong customer-facing experience, move it to the top third of your resume and use it as your main differentiator.

Methodology and Confidence

This June 2026 report was generated on July 10, 2026. Latest direct national data: July 2026. Latest direct Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD data: July 2026.

Confidence: Overall confidence: Medium. Direct local occupation, wage, and labor-market context data exist, but several hiring, salary-range, and skill signals come from sample-based or broader state and national evidence.

Limitations

• The best metro benchmark for this category is the BLS office-support group data, but it lags current conditions; the large local employment base and $24.93/hour wage figure are from May 2025, while the newest local labor-market context is May 2026 and local inflation data is April 2026.[10][11][22]
• Recent year-over-year changes in metro and Pennsylvania unemployment, employment, and labor force are preliminary and may be revised, so small shifts should be read cautiously.[11][23][12][24][25][26][27]
• Statewide Pennsylvania occupation data was used as a proxy for current hiring direction where metro-level occupation hiring and salary series were not available, so it may not capture every submarket inside Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington.[13][14][28]
• The Callings.ai job database is a partial, deduplicated sample of online postings, so it is better for spotting leading employers, work arrangements, salary bands, and skill patterns than for treating exact posting counts or shares as complete market totals.[29][30][9][15][1]
• This category blends several job families under one umbrella, and the local sample appears more customer-facing than classic executive-assistant work because customer service, order processing, and order taking show up prominently in the skill mix.[1]

References

1. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-06 · callings.ai
2. Robert Half. 2026 Administrative and customer support job market: In-demand roles and hiring trends · 2026-06 · roberthalf.com
3. Robert Half. Job seeking? These industries are hiring now—and AI literacy could give you an edge · 2026-06 · roberthalf.com
4. Iaap-hq. Certification for Administrative & Executive Assistants | IAAP · 2026-07 · iaap-hq.org
5. Robert Half. AI for administrative assistants: Tools, skills and career growth tips · 2026-07 · roberthalf.com
6. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-06 · callings.ai
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9. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-06 · callings.ai
10. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Employment and Wages in Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington — May 2024 · 2025-05 · bls.gov
11. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-05 · data.bls.gov
12. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-05 · data.bls.gov
13. Reveliolabs. Employment - Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-06 · reveliolabs.com
14. Reveliolabs. Job Openings - Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-06 · reveliolabs.com
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19. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-04 · data.bls.gov
20. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-05 · data.bls.gov
21. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-05 · data.bls.gov
22. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Consumer Price Index, Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington — April 2026 · 2026-05 · bls.gov
23. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-05 · data.bls.gov
24. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-05 · data.bls.gov
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27. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-05 · data.bls.gov
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29. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-06 · callings.ai
30. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-06 · callings.ai
31. Reveliolabs. Mass-layoff Notices - Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-06 · reveliolabs.com
32. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-06 · callings.ai
33. Simular. 10 Best AI Executive Assistants in 2026: Complete Comparisons & Full Guide · 2026-07 · simular.ai
34. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-06 · callings.ai
35. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-05 · data.bls.gov