In the 1960s and 1970s, many people, mostly women, were employed as “secretaries” and “clerical workers”. About 10-12% were secretaries and up to 20% in the combined secretarial/clerical worker category – that’s 1 in 5 jobs!
Today, about 8–10% of jobs are in the broad “office and administrative support” category, but only about 2–3% are traditional secretarial/administrative assistant roles.
This drop occurred due to automation (word processors, especially), databases (no longer needed filing cabinets filled with forms and reports) – and that many professional employees did their own typing, filing and reports using new computer tools.
