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File clerks

Also called Records clerk, Medical records clerk, Claims clerk, Records custodian, Document management clerk

In brief

In May 2025, BLS counted 73,440 US file clerks, with median pay of $43,600 a year. Of the BLS counts since 2003, the highest was 249,270, in May 2003. The earliest figure here is an estimate of 26,000 from 1910, not measured the same way as today's count. The last full technology era for file clerks: OCR and optical character recognition at scale, 2015 to 2023.

What the sources say

Official outlook

BLS projects employment to decline 15.8% from 2025 to 2035.

BLS Employment Projections 2025-35

AI exposure studies

  • 47.1% of this job's tasks are exposed to large language models. Not a forecast of job losses. Eloundou and others, 2023
  • 0.97 estimated probability that the whole occupation could be computerised, over an unspecified number of years. Not a forecast of job losses. Frey and Osborne, 2013

Since the 2013 prediction

In 2013, Frey and Osborne put this job's probability of computerisation at 0.97. BLS counted 152,920 of these jobs in May 2013 and 73,440 in May 2025 (-52%, a change derived by Future History).

Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35. BLS publishes these counts as yearly survey snapshots and cautions against reading them as a precise trend. In May 2021 BLS changed how it estimates these counts (a model-based method using three years of survey data) and moved fully to the 2018 occupation codes, so part of a change across 2021 can come from the method rather than the work.

Last updated .

Cite this page
APA

Future History. (2026, October 11). File clerks: jobs and pay since 1910 [Data set; data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35]. https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/43-4071

Chicago

Future History. "File clerks: jobs and pay since 1910." Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35. Last modified October 11, 2026. https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/43-4071.

BibTeX

@misc{futurehistory_43_4071, author = {{Future History}}, title = {File clerks: jobs and pay since 1910}, year = {2026}, month = oct, howpublished = {\url{https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/43-4071}}, note = {Last updated 2026-10-11. Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35}, }

The access date is today's date on your device.

drag to travel through time
19001925195019752000now
2026
Known then as Filing Clerk / Records Keeper (early cabinet era)
Known then as File Clerk / Filing Clerk (standardized clerical era)
Known then as File Clerk / Records Clerk (post-EEOC, corporate records era)
Known then as File Clerk / Document Management Clerk (digital transition era)
Known then as File Clerks (BLS SOC 43-4071, document management system era)
Known today as File Clerks (BLS SOC 43-4071, document management system era)
Projected to still be called File Clerks (BLS SOC 43-4071, document management system era)
Data from the May 2025 survey
US Employment
73K
Est.

Stated in source: BLS OEWS

Official statistic
Report an error
Median Annual Wage
$43,600
Est.

≈ $42,482 in 2024 prices (derived by us, CPI-adjusted)

Official statistic
Report an error
Beat · 1893

The Library Bureau exhibits the vertical filing cabinet at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The cabinet stores loose papers upright in labeled manila folders that can be sorted alphanumerically -- a solution to the paper chaos of the rapidly expanding American office. Melvil Dewey's Library Bureau had by this point already standardized library card catalogs; it now applied the same classification logic to business correspondence. The cabinet quickly spread from the Library Bureau's Boston and Chicago offices to businesses nationwide.

Beat · 1920

By 1920, according to historian Craig Robertson, filing cabinets are "found in the offices of every business as well as professors' offices, the offices of clergy members, newspaper offices, and offices of charities." The occupation of file clerk is by this time fully established as a distinct, primarily female, clerical role. Office management textbooks teach filing as a craft skill: alphabetical vs. numerical vs. subject-matter schemes, cross-reference cards, charge-out slips for removed folders. The Library Bureau and its competitors sell filing supplies, training manuals, and consulting services alongside the cabinets themselves.

Beat · 1935

The New Deal expands the federal government bureaucracy dramatically: the Social Security Administration (established 1935) alone will eventually manage records for over 100 million workers. Federal agencies become some of the largest employers of file clerks in the country, a relationship that will persist until the digital era. The National Archives is established in 1934, signaling the federal government's recognition that records management has become a distinct institutional function requiring professional stewardship.

Beat · 1959

The Xerox 914 plain-paper photocopier, introduced in 1959, paradoxically expands the file clerk's workload. Correspondence that previously existed as a single typed original now circulates in multiple copies, each of which enters the filing system. The 914 is an immediate commercial success: Xerox leased the machines rather than selling them, generating over $800 million in revenue by 1965. For the next three decades, the photocopier keeps paper volume growing despite the arrival of computers -- sustaining file clerk employment at its historical peak.

Beat · 1974

The Freedom of Information Act (1966) and the Privacy Act (1974) establish statutory frameworks governing how federal agencies must store, retrieve, and disclose records. These laws, and their state-level equivalents, formalize records retention schedules and access-control requirements -- creating a durable compliance rationale for professional records management that persists even as automation reduces routine filing tasks. The file clerk in a government or regulated-industry setting increasingly works against a defined legal framework, not just an organizational preference.

Beat · 2001

Microsoft SharePoint 2001 launches as a document management and team collaboration platform. Within a decade it becomes the dominant enterprise content management system in the world, deployed in most Fortune 500 companies and most large government agencies. SharePoint does not eliminate paper filing immediately, but it provides the technical and organizational infrastructure on which paper-to-digital migration programs can be built. File clerk employment, which had held roughly stable through the 1990s, begins its sustained decline following SharePoint's adoption curve.

Beat · 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerates remote-work adoption and forces many organizations to complete paper-to-digital migrations that had been deferred for years: physical file rooms cannot be staffed by remote workers, creating an immediate operational incentive to digitize. Organizations that had maintained hybrid paper-digital systems as a legacy accommodation found the pandemic an inflection point: the paper archive became a business-continuity risk rather than a familiar comfort. File clerk employment, already in decline, fell sharply in 2020 and did not fully recover, consistent with the pattern seen across administrative support occupations.

How to read this number

OEWS is a point-in-time survey snapshot, not a continuous time series; BLS advises against using it for year-over-year trend comparison.

Each dot is a cited figure over time; the dotted line only links them (values between aren't measured). Hollow dots are estimates.

Official statistic: Copied by a script from a statistics agency table or a published study's table, not retyped by hand. BLS figures and the forecast and exposure tables are also re-checked against that table on every data run. Researched context: Researched from the cited source rather than copied from it by a script, so it is not machine-checked yet. Spot a mistake? Each figure has a “Report an error” link.

Cited forecasts · present → 2035

Will AI replace file clerks? What the research says

Each figure is stated by the named source; we publish no forecasts of our own. Where sources disagree, we show the disagreement rather than an average.

Each figure is stated by the named source; we publish no forecasts of our own. Where sources disagree, the spread is the honest signal.

What published forecasts say
Forecast change in the number of people doing this work, as published by each named source. Bars share one scale on every role, centred on zero and reaching the end at ±30%. Grey marks a small change, 3% or less either way.
BLS Employment Projections 2025-35
→ 2035
-15.8%
BLS National Employment Matrix, 2025-35 cycle, line for SOC 43-4071 (File clerks): 76.2 thousand jobs in 2025, projected 64.2 thousand in 2035, a change of -12.0 thousand (-15.8%). Matrix employment counts all jobs in the occupation, including self-employed workers (1.4% of this occupation in 2025). The average for all occupations in this cycle is +3.5%.
Official statisticReport an error
How exposed is this work to AI (research measures)
Scores as published by each study. Each row says what it measures. These measure what AI could technically do, not forecasts of jobs lost.
Frey & Osborne (2013), "The Future of Employment"
2013 study · Probability of computerisation (2013 model)
97%
probability
What this measures

Published appendix value for SOC 2010 43-4071 File Clerks: probability of computerisation 0.97, rank 662 of 702 (rank 1 is least computerisable). Frey and Osborne estimated in 2013, with a Gaussian-process classifier on O*NET variables, how likely the whole occupation is to be technically automatable over "some unspecified number of years, perhaps a decade or two". It is a probability for the occupation, not a share of tasks and not a forecast of jobs lost.

Official statisticReport an error
Eloundou et al. (2023), "GPTs are GPTs"
2023 study · Share of tasks exposed to LLMs (β, human-rated)
47.1%
of tasks
What this measures

Published occupation-level exposure from the paper's occ_level.csv for O*NET-SOC 43-4071.00 File Clerks. Shown: human-rated β = 0.471, the share of the occupation's tasks an LLM could do in at least half the time at equal quality, counting tasks that need LLM-powered software at half weight (β = E1 + 0.5 × E2). Other published measures for this occupation: human-rated α (LLM alone) 0.176 and γ (all LLM-assisted) 0.765; GPT-4-rated β 0.794. This measures how much of the work an LLM could touch, not how many jobs disappear.

Official statisticReport an error
Today, in this role

What's changing day to day for file clerks

Three parts of your work where AI is already doing real lifting, and what stays yours.

AI is taking this onReview incoming documents (paper, scan, or email attachment) and assign metadata tags for document type, date, department, and retention category so they land in the correct folder within the document management system (DMS).

Review incoming documents (paper, scan, or email attachment) and assign metadata tags for document type, date, department, and retention category so they land in the correct folder within the document management system (DMS).[7],[1]

Where your edge is

Shift from tagging every document to auditing AI-suggested classifications for edge cases: unusual formats, dual-purpose records, and multi-department documents where the system confidence score falls below threshold.

AI is taking this onPerform general administrative support tied to records: preparing transmittal forms, logging incoming mail for filing queues, and maintaining physical storage areas (labelling boxes, updating off-site retrieval inventories).

Perform general administrative support tied to records: preparing transmittal forms, logging incoming mail for filing queues, and maintaining physical storage areas (labelling boxes, updating off-site retrieval inventories).[1]

Where your edge is

As routine mail-log and transmittal tasks become automated, redirect effort toward records-management governance work: updating retention schedules, conducting periodic file-room audits, and supporting compliance reviews.

AI is sitting alongside you hereRetrieve records requested by staff or authorized external parties, verify requester credentials against access-control lists, and deliver documents via secure DMS link or physical copy as protocol requires.

Retrieve records requested by staff or authorized external parties, verify requester credentials against access-control lists, and deliver documents via secure DMS link or physical copy as protocol requires.[1],[8]

Where your edge is

Develop expertise in access-control configuration and audit-trail review within your DMS, so you can set and enforce permissions rather than execute individual retrieval requests that the system now handles automatically.

Where file clerks go next

Natural next steps for someone with your foundation: not exits, evolutions.

What each move takes

Bookkeeping and Auditing Clerks work with structured financial records, an adjacent domain to document management. File clerks with strong organizational accuracy and attention to detail can pivot with accounting software training. The role is also under automation pressure but maintains higher wage levels and a clearer credential path.

What you'd add
  • · Double-entry bookkeeping principles and debits/credits
  • · QuickBooks Online or Xero (small-business accounting platforms)
  • · ARMA or ICRM Essentials of Records Management certificate for governance credibility
  • · Spreadsheet financial modeling (Excel pivot tables, basic formulas)
What it takesSome new skills to pick up
Tools of the era

How has the work of file clerks changed since 1893?

The tools that defined the work, one line per era. Select an era to see how it reshaped the work.

  • Vertical filing cabinet and manila folder system (Library Bureau, 1893)

    The vertical filing cabinet, prototyped by the Library Bureau and exhibited at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, organized loose papers in alphanumerically tabbed manila folders for the first time. Before this, offices stored paper in bound ledgers, flat stacked boxes, or spindle files with no quick-retrieval mechanism. The cabinet made the file clerk's job coherent as a distinct role: there was now a specific physical technology that had to be fed, organized, and queried by trained human hands. Melvil Dewey's Library Bureau published filing manuals and trained clerks in classification schemes, establishing the occupation's first professional framework.

    Effect on the work

    The filing cabinet created the file clerk occupation by generating a paper-storage problem that only a dedicated, trained worker could solve at the scale of a growing corporate bureaucracy. The Library Bureau sold both the furniture and the training curriculum, effectively professionalizing the role while keeping it subordinate.

  • Photocopier (Xerox 914, 1959) and IBM Selectric typewriter (1961)

    The Xerox 914, introduced in 1959 as the first plain-paper photocopier, paradoxically increased the file clerk's workload for decades before eventually threatening it. Where previously a single original was filed, now multiple copies circulated through an organization and each required its own folder. The IBM Selectric typewriter (1961) similarly accelerated correspondence volume. By the late 1960s, the average American corporate office was producing far more paper per employee than it had in the 1940s, and the file room expanded to match. File clerk employment peaked in this era not because the job was easy but because paper had become the universal medium for organizational memory.

    Effect on the work

    The photocopier era is the counterintuitive high-water mark for file clerk employment: technology intended to reduce friction in document handling instead multiplied the number of documents requiring storage and retrieval. Employment grew between 1940 and 1970.

  • Personal computer and networked file server (IBM PC 1981; Novell NetWare 1983)

    The IBM PC (1981) and the emergence of local-area network file servers (Novell NetWare, 1983; Windows NT, 1993) began moving organizational memory off paper and onto disk. Microsoft Word replaced the typewriter for correspondence; spreadsheets replaced handwritten ledgers; networked shared drives gave every employee direct access to digital files without going through a clerk. The effect on file clerk employment was slow at first, because digital documents did not eliminate the paper archive built up over decades -- someone still had to manage the physical files that predated the digital era. But the pipeline of new paper was now shrinking, and the occupation's growth trajectory reversed.

    Effect on the work

    File clerk employment, which had been broadly stable through the early 1990s, began declining in the mid-1990s as digital-native workflows reduced the volume of paper requiring professional filing. Employment fell between 1990 and 2003 -- a modest decline at first, then accelerating.

  • Document management systems (Documentum 1990, Laserfiche 1987, SharePoint 2001)

    Enterprise document management systems (DMS) -- Documentum (founded 1990), Laserfiche (founded 1987, product matured through the 1990s), and Microsoft SharePoint (launched 2001) -- gave organizations a structured digital repository for scanned and born-digital records, with metadata, version control, and search. These platforms did not eliminate the need for human document management entirely, but they restructured it. Where a file room previously required many clerks to manage physical retrieval and refiling, a DMS could serve the same retrieval function for an entire organization with one or two administrators and a self-service search interface. Flat-file paper filing was replaced by metadata tagging, and the clerk who had once known where every folder lived physically was replaced by a system that answered queries in milliseconds.

    Effect on the work

    DMS adoption accelerated the employment decline of the 2000s. File clerk employment fell between 2003 and 2010 -- a decline in seven years. Organizations that implemented SharePoint or Documentum typically reduced filing-specific headcount as part of the deployment.

  • OCR and optical character recognition at scale (ABBYY FineReader, Adobe Acrobat Pro, cloud OCR)

    Optical character recognition technology, commercially available since the 1980s but accurate and affordable at scale only from roughly 2010 onward, allowed organizations to convert paper archives into searchable PDFs that could be indexed and retrieved without human involvement. Combined with cloud storage (Dropbox 2008, Google Drive 2012, Microsoft OneDrive 2014), OCR-enabled scanning pipelines allowed organizations to complete decades-long paper-to-digital migrations. File clerks remained essential to this process -- someone had to supervise batch scanning, verify OCR quality, and correct misclassifications -- but the number of clerks needed per unit of document volume fell sharply.

    Effect on the work

    The OCR and cloud storage era reduced the file clerk workforce between 2010 and 2024 -- a further decline over fourteen years. The remaining workforce became increasingly specialized in exception handling, compliance oversight, and legacy-archive migration rather than routine filing.

  • Intelligent Document Processing (DocuWare, Laserfiche Smart Fields, M-Files Aino) and AI classification

    Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) platforms -- DocuWare Intelligent Indexing (launched 2018), Laserfiche Smart Fields (2025 iteration), and M-Files Aino (2024) -- apply machine-learning models to classify incoming documents, extract key metadata fields (date, vendor, document type, department), and auto-route records into the correct folder structure without human intervention. These tools handle the routine classification work that once occupied the bulk of a file clerk's day. What remains for human clerks is the exception queue: documents the AI flags as low-confidence, multi-department records requiring policy judgment, and compliance-sensitive material requiring a human chain of custody. Microsoft 365 Copilot for SharePoint, launched in 2023, extended AI reasoning to natural-language queries over document repositories -- further reducing the need for a human intermediary to locate and retrieve records.

    Effect on the work

    IDP and AI classification represent the most recent and potentially the deepest phase of automation for this occupation.

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File Clerks employment and pay by year

On record since1893
Latest US employment73,440 (May 2025)Source: BLS OEWS May 2025Official statisticReport an error
Latest US median pay$43,600 (May 2025)Source: BLS OEWS May 2025Official statisticReport an error
Outlook-15.8% by 2035Source: BLS Employment Projections 2025-35Official statisticReport an error
View all 28 years of cited US data, each linked to its source
YearUS employmentAnnual pay (median unless marked)SourceReport
191026,000n/aEst., Estimate of US file clerks c.1910 Researched contextReport
1940150,000n/aEst., Estimate of US file clerks c.1940 Researched contextReport
1956n/a$2,600Est., Estimate of mid-1950s file-clerk annual… Researched contextReport
1970272,000n/aDecennial Census 1970 Researched contextReport
1990280,000n/aDecennial Census Researched contextReport
2003249,270$20,470BLS OEWS May 2003 Official statisticReport
2004242,640$21,030BLS OEWS May 2004 Official statisticReport
2005229,830$21,430BLS OEWS May 2005 Official statisticReport
2006223,090$22,090BLS OEWS May 2006 Official statisticReport
2007214,590$23,010BLS OEWS May 2007 Official statisticReport
2008204,760$23,800BLS OEWS May 2008 Official statisticReport
2009188,510$24,730BLS OEWS May 2009 Official statisticReport
2010174,910$25,090BLS OEWS May 2010 Official statisticReport
2011165,250$25,630BLS OEWS May 2011 Official statisticReport
2012158,580$26,190BLS OEWS May 2012 Official statisticReport
2013152,920$26,810BLS OEWS May 2013 Official statisticReport
2014148,280$27,580BLS OEWS May 2014 Official statisticReport
2015140,560$27,850BLS OEWS May 2015 Official statisticReport
2016130,950$29,090BLS OEWS May 2016 Official statisticReport
2017118,840$30,120BLS OEWS May 2017 Official statisticReport
2018110,020$31,700BLS OEWS May 2018 Official statisticReport
2019102,300$32,710BLS OEWS May 2019 Official statisticReport
202091,560$34,090BLS OEWS May 2020 Official statisticReport
202185,460$36,360BLS OEWS May 2021 Official statisticReport
202287,250$37,290BLS OEWS May 2022 Official statisticReport
202382,290$38,130BLS OEWS May 2023 Official statisticReport
202478,980$41,270BLS OEWS May 2024 Official statisticReport
202573,440$43,600BLS OEWS May 2025 Official statisticReport
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