Perform routine administrative support such as correspondence, scheduling, records, phone communications, and office coordination.
Administrative information handling is increasingly machine-scalable, and agentic systems can combine scheduling, correspondence, documents and workflow coordination. The occupation is already in structural decline and AI reinforces that trajectory.
Contraction underway
The near-term contraction reflects an existing decline. The 2035 downside reflects managers and professionals becoming more self-sufficient with AI, reducing the need for dedicated support positions.
Organizational growth creates administrative activity, but agents can absorb more of the incremental workload.
Agentic administrative workflows; employees or executives supported per assistant.
Scheduling, correspondence, information handling, drafting and routine office coordination are highly compatible with current AI systems.
Directional summary of whether current evidence pushes EOL toward greater or lesser human labor demand relative to the occupation’s existing structural trajectory. It is categorical, not a probability, percentile, automation share, or mathematical adjustment.
Administrative information handling can increasingly scale through software and agents, while managers and professionals become more self-sufficient, weakening historical support-staffing relationships.
Secretarial and administrative support has few formal entry barriers and a relatively old incumbent workforce. As AI reduces routine administrative workload, retirements, occupational exits, and transfers create a strong natural-attrition channel. The occupation can therefore contract materially through nonreplacement without requiring layoffs on the same scale as the decline in employment.
How EOL analyzes labor supply →