Clerical Workers’ Demise Exaggerated, Study Says
Predictions that the computerization of American business would sharply reduce the need for clerical workers by eliminating mountains of paper work couldn’t have been more off base, according to a study by a UC Irvine professor.
A three-year analysis of state and federal labor statistics reveals that clerical workers make up the single largest employment group within the information sector, which includes everything from teachers and engineers to librarians and insurance agents.
And while the computer has replaced the typewriter and file cabinet in many offices, other business traditions remain unchanged: clerical work remains a lower-paid occupation dominated by women who have little chance of advancement.
Rob Kling, a professor of computer and information science who conducted the study, said that many futurists and economists have theorized that computers are freeing paper pushers and processors to take more flexible, interesting and high-paying positions.
Evidence to the Contrary
But his study of U.S. Department of Labor and California Employment Development Department statistics found evidence to the contrary.
“I was surprised that clerical workers were such a large fraction and were not declining,” Kling said. “I thought because computer systems have increased the efficiency of many operations, starting in the ‘70s and ‘80s there would be a growth of professionals and a substantial decline in clerical workers.”
The percentage of the American work force involved in recording, processing or communicating information has grown to 54% nationwide from 5.8% in 1860, according to 1980 Department of Labor statistics. Of those jobs, 40% are clerical, while only 7% are fully professional; 33% are semi-professional; 4% are blue collar, and 17% are in sales or supervision, Kling said.
He added that Orange County’s information sector, which accounted for 58% of all jobs in 1980, has an even higher percentage of clerical jobs than was found nationwide: 43.5%.
In some areas, Kling said, the growth of the information sector overlaps what is frequently called the service industry in areas such as real estate and insurance. But, he added, the information sector also includes occupations, such as manufacturing engineers, that are not part of the service industry.
“Behind a lot of information systems, there is a lot of key-stroking. In industry after industry there is a lot of record-keeping both to help businesses run more efficiently and to keep track of routine operations,” Kling said.
“The first image people would have of an information worker would be a computer programmer or financial consultant looking at a spread sheet. A much more accurate image would be of a clerical worker by a word processor or doing data entry.”
Dominated by Women
A discouraging aspect of his findings, Kling said, is that clerical job categories--including secretaries, sales workers, cashiers, typists, bookkeepers, office machine operators, receptionists, estimators, bank tellers, shipping clerks, statistical clerks and teacher aides--continue to be dominated by women and more than ever tend to be dead-end jobs with little chance for advancement.
“It is ironic that clerical jobs are growing . . . at a steady clip when the level of education of women, as measured by the number of college degrees awarded, is at an all-time high,” he said. He said some employers are seeking out college-educated women to perform clerical tasks that have become more complicated by computerization.
As a result, he said, “better-educated clerical workers are doing more complicated work for not significantly more pay.”
Kling said persons with clerical jobs generally are unable to move into professional and semi-professional jobs that require post-graduate training and credentials. Moreover, he said, there has been a decline in the number of upper level sales and supervisory jobs, such as office managers, as a proportion of the overall work force. Such jobs, he said, historically have offered mobility out of the clerical pool.
Kling noted that between 1900 and 1980, sales and supervisory jobs as a proportion of total employment increased from 5.4% to 8.1%, while clerical jobs jumped from 5.5% to 21.7%.
He conducted his research as part of a book now in final editing on the social transformation of Orange County since World War II.
Chapman College economist James Doti disputed Kling’s contention that a significant number of college-educated women are entering lower-paying clerical jobs.
Top-Level Positions
“My observation is women not only from business programs but from liberal arts programs as well are getting top-entry-level management positions in business,” said Doti, who is acting president of Chapman College and dean of its Business School.
He added, however, that women college graduates are taking positions as administrative assistants and executive secretaries at the top of the clerical totem pole, receiving salaries of $25,000 to $40,000 a year.
He said he believes that other clerical positions with less remuneration are being taken by lesser-educated women coming from high schools and junior colleges.
However, Carol Hatch, executive director of the Orange County Commission on the Status of Women, said sometimes women take clerical jobs in a family emergency or to finance their college educations and stay at them much longer than they had planned or wanted.
“They take a temporary job and it becomes a career,” she said.
ORANGE COUNTY’S INFORMATION WORK FORCE
Jobs % of Total Jobs (est.) Clerical 208,924 43.5 263,900 Semi-professional 166,409 34.6 204,342 Sales and supervisory 68,438 14.2 87,680 Professional 21,603 4.5 27,920 Blue collar information 14,906 3.1 18,441 Total information work force 480,280 100.0 602,283
% of Total Clerical 43.8 Semi-professional 33.9 Sales and supervisory 14.6 Professional 4.6 Blue collar information 3.1 Total information work force 100.0
TOP 10 CLERICAL OCCUPATIONS IN COUNTY
1980 1990 Jobs Jobs (est.) % Increase Sales workers 40,149 51,088 27 Secretaries 23,337 31,848 36 Cashiers 16,302 23,177 42 Bookkeepers 14,533 17,736 22 Typists 10,755 13,483 25 Office machine operators 8,121 9,655 19 Bank tellers 4,973 6,409 29 Receptionists 4,216 5,378 28 Shipping and receiving clerks 4,003 4,970 24 Estimators and investigators 1,845 2,794 51
Source: U.S Department of Labor and California Employment Development Department
