Key Takeaways
- The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 489,300 executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants in 2025.
- BLS projects 489,200 workers in that occupation in 2035, which is effectively flat national employment.
- The May 2025 median annual wage for the occupation was $76,590.
- National occupation data does not measure the number of open EA roles, candidate quality, or staffing needs at a specific employer.
Executive assistant hiring is often discussed as though a national employment forecast can tell an employer whether it should hire now. It cannot. Public labor data is useful for understanding the size, pay, and direction of an occupation. A hiring decision still depends on the work, the executive's schedule, the organization’s service standard, and the available budget.
This page uses current U.S. primary sources to separate those questions. The result is a more careful view of EA hiring trends in 2026, without treating a national projection as a vacancy forecast for a particular company.
The current U.S. labor-market baseline
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 489,300 executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants in 2025. It projects 489,200 workers in 2035. That is a change of negative 100 jobs over the decade after rounding, so the national estimate is effectively flat.
The same BLS profile reports a May 2025 median annual wage of $76,590 for executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants. This is an occupation-level median, not a recommended offer. Pay can vary with geography, seniority, security requirements, industry, executive exposure, and the breadth of responsibility.
The broader secretaries and administrative assistants category is projected to decline 2 percent from 2025 to 2035. BLS attributes part of that picture to digital tools that let managers prepare documents themselves, while also noting that many executive assistants support more than one manager. Those are national structural observations, not proof that any one employer needs less support.
What the role data says about the work
The O*NET profile for Executive Secretaries and Executive Administrative Assistants describes a role that handles information requests, correspondence, visitors, conference calls, schedules, research, reports, and other administrative work. The BLS description similarly includes reviewing incoming documents, conducting research, preparing reports, and supporting top executives.
That scope matters when interpreting hiring trends. An employer hiring someone only for calendar logistics is not evaluating the same role as an employer seeking board preparation, travel coordination, executive communications, and confidential project follow-through. One job title can cover very different levels of judgment and coordination.
For a practical way to record the work before setting headcount, see administrative workload statistics. It explains why a request count alone cannot measure capacity.
How to use the trend data in a hiring plan
Treat the national data as context, then measure the local hiring decision directly.
Start by defining the support scope. List recurring calendar work, travel, meeting preparation, inbox triage, documents, stakeholder coordination, and confidential tasks separately. Name which work requires executive judgment and which work can be completed under a defined process.
Next, review demand over several typical weeks. Capture incoming requests, completion time, rework, urgent interruptions, and executive complaints about missed handoffs. This produces evidence about the actual work rather than an assumed market ratio.
Then compare the scope to the candidate profile. BLS says executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants typically need several years of related experience. A role with executive-facing work, sensitive information, and independent prioritization may require a different search and compensation plan from an entry-level administrative role.
Finally, set a review point after hiring. A job description is a hypothesis about workload. Review the queue, service quality, and executive time use after the first operating period, then adjust scope or coverage if the evidence calls for it.
Signals that merit closer analysis
National employment data does not supply a universal trigger for hiring. These local signals are more decision-useful:
- recurring calendar conflicts, preparation gaps, or missed follow-ups
- a growing backlog of tasks that are clearly defined but not executive-critical
- urgent work routinely displacing planned coordination
- repeated rework caused by unclear ownership or incomplete handoffs
- a senior leader spending material time on scheduling, travel, or routine information routing
These are prompts to investigate, not proof that an EA hire is the right answer. A process redesign, a clearer approval path, temporary coverage, or a different role may solve the underlying problem.
Important caveats
- BLS employment projections are national forecasts. They do not measure current job openings or candidate availability in a city, industry, or company.
- The 2025 wage figure is a median for an occupation. It does not include an employer's full cost or set a salary for a particular vacancy.
- O*NET describes an occupation, not a fixed job description for every executive assistant role.
- A flat national employment projection does not show that executive support demand is flat. Individual organizations can grow, reorganize, or change their support model in different directions.
- Public sources reviewed here do not establish that a particular hiring model will improve executive productivity or reduce costs by a specific amount.
Related reading
- EA administrative load statistics
- EA to executive ratio statistics
- Executive assistant salary by state
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