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

Executive Verdict

Market rating: competitive | Confidence: Medium

Philadelphia is still a large administrative labor market, with 341,510 office and administrative support jobs in the metro, equal to 11.9% of local employment, though that benchmark is from May 2024.[2] Current search conditions look workable but competitive: metro unemployment was 4.5% in February 2026, slightly above the 4.3% national rate in April 2026, while Pennsylvania administrative and office support employment and postings were essentially flat year over year in April 2026 according to Revelio Public Labor Statistics.[1][25][3][4] Local opportunity is real rather than narrow, with more than 700 recent postings across more than 450 companies, but most openings are on-site and entry-level, which can create crowding at the lower end.[6][10][26]

Best positioned: Candidates with customer service, data entry, Microsoft Office, and the ability to work on-site in healthcare, physician-office, or multi-site service environments have the best odds right now.[16][10][11][17]

Main caution: The biggest mistake is assuming remote admin work is common here; about 90% of sampled postings were on-site and only about 5% were remote.[10]

What Changed Recently

• Pennsylvania administrative and office support employment and active postings were both essentially flat year over year in April 2026, even as statewide postings across all occupations were down 7.8%.[3][4]: This category is holding up better than the broader market, but it is not expanding enough to make hiring easy.
• The metro unemployment rate was 4.5% in February 2026 versus 4.3% nationally in April 2026.[1][25]: Local hiring is not collapsing, but employers still have enough applicant flow to be picky about commute, schedule, and proven office readiness.
• We observed more than 700 postings across more than 450 companies in the metro over the last 90 days, and hiring was fragmented rather than dominated by a few employers.[6][8]: A broad application strategy beats waiting for one marquee employer or one perfect executive-assistant posting.
• National JOLTS job openings were 6866 thousand in March 2026, down -1.2371% year over year.[31]: Even solid local openings are likely to attract fast competition, so speed and fit matter more than usual.
• Recent public layoff notices in the metro include BPM Limited, Macy's Retail Holdings, White Deer Run Allenwood, and Spirit Airlines.[12][13][14][15]: These notices are not administrative-role specific, but they can add experienced office workers to the local candidate pool.

What This Means for You

Entry-Level Candidates

Difficulty: Moderate to high because the market has plenty of openings but they skew heavily entry-level and on-site, which creates crowding.

Best target: Aim first at receptionist, front desk, scheduler, and admin coordinator roles in healthcare, healthcare services, hospitality, and other in-person service settings.[16][10][26][17]

Biggest mistake: Filtering for remote-only work or spending weeks chasing a small number of executive-assistant postings before building traction in broader office roles.

Next step: Build one resume version around phones, scheduling, Microsoft Office, customer service, and data entry, then focus on postings that ask for a high school diploma or equivalent first; that is the most common stated education bar, and typical active postings stay open around 24 days.[21][11][18]

Mid-Career Candidates

Difficulty: Moderate if you already have executive support, office management, or coordinator experience; harder if your resume reads as general clerical support only.

Best target: Target executive assistant, office manager, and higher-trust coordinator roles in management-company, physician-office, government, and enterprise settings where broader support scope is rewarded.[30][17][23]

Biggest mistake: Using a generic administrative resume that hides calendaring, vendor management, meeting support, process cleanup, and project follow-through.

Next step: Rewrite your resume around outcomes such as calendar compression, travel logistics, document control, and workflow improvements, then add one visible AI or automation proof point because the role is shifting toward more autonomous, cross-functional work.[22][19][20]

Career Switchers

Difficulty: Moderate if you are coming from retail, hospitality, or other customer-facing work and can translate that into office execution.

Best target: The best bridge roles are on-site front desk and administrative coordinator jobs in healthcare, healthcare services, hospitality, and enterprise employers with repeatable customer-facing workflows.[16][10][23]

Biggest mistake: Presenting your background as generic people skills instead of showing office-adjacent tasks like scheduling, cash reconciliation, documentation, call handling, and conflict resolution.

Next step: Create a transition resume that maps your past work into appointment setting, CRM or spreadsheet updates, document handling, and customer issue resolution, then add Microsoft Office or AI-tool proficiency to move past first-screen doubts.[19]

Salary Reality

stable pay slow advancement

Observed local postings center on about $50k to $65k, with hourly roles clustering around about $19 to $22 per hour.[9][32] A recent Philadelphia executive administrative assistant opening posted $24–$28 per hour, which shows the higher end exists but is tied to broader support responsibilities.[30] As directional benchmarks, Revelio Public Labor Statistics puts the mean offered salary on new Pennsylvania administrative and office support openings at ~$50,540 (n=2,572) and the national mean at ~$54,507 (n=158,889), while national salary guides put executive assistants at $70,250 and office managers at $66,000.[5][28][33]

This looks like a moderate-pay market for general office work: solid enough for stable earnings, but not a place where routine administrative tasks alone usually command premium compensation.[9][32][26]

The tradeoff is that most openings are on-site, about 75% are entry-level, and the long-run national outlook for secretaries and administrative assistants is a 10% decline from 2023 to 2033, so pay gains usually come from specialization rather than tenure alone.[10][26][34]

Best-paying path: The stronger-paying path tends to sit in executive assistant and office manager tracks, especially when you support senior leaders, handle projects, or bring AI and data skills; Robert Half says administrative professionals with AI and data experience can earn up to 25% more, and one local executive admin posting was at $24–$28 per hour.[19][30][28][33]

Caution: Do not treat national guide figures as the local norm: the metro salary band is broader and lower for general admin roles, and Revelio Public Labor Statistics reports sample-based mean offered salaries on new openings rather than guaranteed local pay outcomes.[9][5][28]

Where the Opportunities Are Concentrated

The clearest concentration is healthcare-adjacent office work. In the local posting sample, healthcare accounts for about 35% of openings and healthcare services for about 20%, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics identifies Offices of Physicians as one of the largest sectors for administrative employment in the region.[16][17] For job seekers, that points to front desk, scheduling, intake, reception, and general office coordination in clinics and physician practices rather than only corporate headquarters roles. A second opportunity cluster sits in local government and management-company environments, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics also flags as large employers of administrative labor in the region.[17] At the same time, the employer base is spread widely: we observed more than 700 postings across more than 450 companies, hiring was fragmented across employers, and about 35% of postings came from enterprise employers in the sample.[6][8][23] This is also a mostly in-person market. About 90% of postings were on-site, only about 5% were hybrid, and about 75% skewed entry-level.[10][26] That combination favors candidates who can commute reliably and show immediate readiness for phones, scheduling, document handling, and customer-facing office work.

• Healthcare front-office and physician practices (high): Healthcare accounts for about 35% of local postings and healthcare services about 20%, while Offices of Physicians are one of the region's largest employers of administrative labor.[16][17]
• Local government and management companies (moderate): Local Government and Management of Companies are among the largest sectors for administrative employment in the region, making them steady targets for organized, process-oriented candidates.[17]
• Enterprise multi-site service employers (moderate): About 35% of sampled postings come from enterprise employers, and consistently active names include Planet Fitness, Amerco, Domino's Pizza, U-Haul, and National Fitness Partners.[23][7]

Where to focus: Prioritize on-site healthcare front-office roles first, then add enterprise multi-location employers and government or management-company openings to widen your pipeline.

Skills and Credentials Worth Pursuing

• Customer service (table stakes): Customer service is the most-requested skill in the local posting sample at about 40%, which tells you many office jobs here are really service jobs in office clothing.[11]
• Written and verbal communication (table stakes): Communication shows up in about 30% of local postings, and national administrative research still identifies written and verbal communication as a core hiring competency.[11][35]
• Data entry and attention to detail (table stakes): Data entry and attention to detail each appear in about 15% of local postings, making them core screening skills for general office support.[11]
• Microsoft Office / Microsoft 365 (differentiator): Microsoft Office appears in the local skill mix, and Robert Half says Microsoft Office Specialist certifications are still a valuable way to prove practical Office 365 proficiency.[11][19]
• AI fluency with tools such as ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini (premium): Robert Half says employers increasingly seek administrative candidates who can work with generative AI tools, 88% of managers report their teams are already using AI, and administrative professionals with AI and data experience can earn up to 25% more.[19]
• Prompt engineering (differentiator): Prompt engineering is now described as a highly valued administrative skill because better prompts directly improve drafting, summarizing, and research quality.[19]
• Workflow automation using Zapier or Make (premium): Workflow automation is increasingly valued for administrative professionals because it helps remove repetitive tasks and signals process-improvement ability.[20]
• Healthcare front-desk workflow knowledge (differentiator): Healthcare and healthcare services make up most of the local opening mix, and Offices of Physicians are one of the region's largest administrative-employment sectors, so candidates who understand appointments, intake, and patient-facing office flow have a real edge.[16][17]

Adjacent Roles to Consider

• Patient access representative (both): It is a natural bridge because healthcare and healthcare services make up most of the local opening mix for office support, and physician offices are a major employer base in the region.[16][17]
• Project coordinator (pivot): Support roles are being pulled toward more autonomous, cross-functional work, and project management software is becoming more important in the broader talent mix.[22][27]
• Property management assistant (bridge): Robert Half groups property management assistant work near the same talent pool that values service excellence and digital fluency.[28]
• Operations coordinator (pivot): Employers increasingly reward administrative workers who can automate workflows and handle broader coordination, which makes operations support a realistic next step for process-minded candidates.[20][24]

30 / 60 / 90-Day Plan

First 30 Days

• Drop any remote-only filter and build an on-site commute map first; about 90% of sampled openings were on-site and only about 5% were remote.[10]
• Make two resume versions: one for front desk or receptionist work and one for admin coordinator or executive-support work, both centered on customer service, communication, data entry, and Microsoft Office.[11]
• Build a target list of healthcare offices, healthcare services employers, management companies, and local government employers before you start applying so your search matches where demand is concentrated.[16][17]
• Apply early in the posting life cycle and track response rates weekly; the typical active posting has been open around 24 days, so waiting usually costs visibility.[18]

Days 31-60

• Complete a small proof-of-skill project in Excel, Word, calendar management, or document formatting and attach it to applications for office-manager or coordinator roles.
• Add one visible AI workflow to your toolkit, such as drafting meeting summaries with Copilot or ChatGPT or automating a file or form handoff with Zapier or Make, then mention the outcome on your resume.[19][20]
• If you are entry-level, prioritize roles that ask for a high school diploma or equivalent because that is still the most common stated education bar in the local sample.[21]
• If you are mid-career, rewrite bullets around executive support, process improvement, scheduling complexity, and stakeholder coordination so you are not screened as generic clerical labor.[22]

Days 61-90

• If response rates stay low, pivot deliberately into adjacent healthcare-support-admin or project-coordinator roles instead of continuing the same search with the same resume.
• Pursue a concrete credential only if it closes a visible gap, with Microsoft Office Specialist as the most practical first option for many candidates.[19]
• Build a sector-specific story for one lane, such as physician-office front desk, local government administration, or enterprise multi-site support, rather than staying broad and interchangeable.[16][17][23]
• Use interviews to position yourself as someone who reduces friction, not just someone who answers phones, because the market is rewarding more autonomous and strategic support work.[22][24]

Methodology and Confidence

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

Confidence: Overall confidence: Medium. Core local signals are solid, but some sub-role conclusions rely on broader category and proxy data.

Limitations

• The freshest local unemployment reading is from February 2026, but the largest direct metro employment benchmark for this occupation is from May 2024, so current conditions are inferred from newer state and posting signals rather than a brand-new metro occupation count.[1][2]
• Statewide labor data was used as a proxy where metro-level Revelio Public Labor Statistics is not published, so April 2026 hiring and salary direction comes from Pennsylvania totals rather than a metro-only series.[3][4][5]
• The Callings.ai job database is a partial, deduplicated sample of online postings, so employer names, skill patterns, work-arrangement mix, and salary bands are more reliable as directional signals than as exact market totals or exact shares.[6][7][8][9][10][11]
• Several recent layoff notices in the metro, including BPM Limited, Macy's Retail Holdings, White Deer Run Allenwood, and Spirit Airlines, are real local risk signals, but the notices do not specify how many affected workers were in administrative roles.[12][13][14][15]
• This page covers a broad office-support family using representative titles like administrative assistant, receptionist, and office manager, so niche paths such as medical billing or payroll follow different labor markets and should be evaluated separately.

References

1. Federal Reserve Economic Data. Unemployment Rate in Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD (MSA) · 2026-04 · fred.stlouisfed.org
2. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Employment and Wages in Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington — May 2024 · 2025-05 · bls.gov
3. Reveliolabs. Employment - Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-04 · reveliolabs.com
4. Reveliolabs. Job Openings - Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-04 · reveliolabs.com
5. Reveliolabs. Salaries - Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-04 · reveliolabs.com
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11. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
12. Pa. WARN Notices · 2026-03 · pa.gov
13. Nj. Nj - warn_notice_layoff · 2026-01 · nj.gov
14. Warntracker. White Deer Run Allenwood Lays Off 31 Workers — Allenwood, PA WARN Notice April 2026 · 2026-04 · warntracker.com
15. Labor. Labor - warn_notice_layoff · 2026-05 · labor.maryland.gov
16. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
17. Bureau of Labor Statistics. First-Line Supervisors of Office and Administrative Support Workers · 2024-04 · bls.gov
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19. Robert Half. AI for administrative assistants: Tools, skills and career growth tips · 2026-04 · roberthalf.com
20. Frontlinesourcegroup. Top Skills Administrative Professionals Need in 2026 · 2026-04 · frontlinesourcegroup.com
21. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
22. Lhh. Lhh - role_trend · 2026-01 · lhh.com
23. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
24. Daestephensonbooks. How AI Is Changing the Executive Assistant Role - Dae Stephenson Books · 2026-05 · daestephensonbooks.com
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26. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
27. Robert Half. 2026 Administrative and Customer Service Salaries and Compensation Trends · 2025-10 · roberthalf.com
28. Robert Half. 2026 Administrative and Customer Support Salary Trends: The Skills and Roles Driving Growth · 2025-11 · roberthalf.com
29. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-04 · data.bls.gov
30. Robert Half. Robert Half - executive_administrative_assistant_hourly_range_philadelphia · 2026-05 · roberthalf.com
31. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data · 2026-03 · data.bls.gov
32. Callings.ai. Callings.ai job-market aggregation · 2026-04 · callings.ai
33. Bluesignal. 2026 Compensation Trends and Salary Guide - Blue Signal Search · 2025-11 · bluesignal.com
34. Bureau of Labor Statistics. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · 2024-08 · bls.gov
35. Daybook. Administrative Salary Data | Daybook · 2026-01 · daybook.com
36. Reveliolabs. Mass-layoff Notices - Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) · 2026-04 · reveliolabs.com
37. Inquirer. The Philadelphia area lost thousands of federal jobs last year. These agencies were hit the hardest · 2026-04 · inquirer.com