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Receptionists

Official title Receptionists and Information Clerks (SOC 43-4171)

Also called Front desk receptionist, Front desk clerk, Information clerk, Administrative receptionist, Office receptionist

In brief

In May 2025, BLS counted 910,180 US receptionists, with median pay of $38,010 a year. Of the BLS counts since 2003, the highest was 1,112,350, in May 2006. The earliest figure here is an estimate of 200,000 from 1950, not measured the same way as today's count. The last full technology era for receptionists: Digital visitor management kiosks, 2015 to 2023.

What the sources say

Official outlook

BLS projects employment to decline 1.7% from 2025 to 2035.

BLS Employment Projections 2025-35

AI exposure studies

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). Receptionists: jobs and pay since 1950 [Data set; data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35]. https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/43-4171

Chicago

Future History. "Receptionists: jobs and pay since 1950." Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35. Last modified October 11, 2026. https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/43-4171.

BibTeX

@misc{futurehistory_43_4171, author = {{Future History}}, title = {Receptionists: jobs and pay since 1950}, year = {2026}, month = oct, howpublished = {\url{https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/43-4171}}, 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.

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19001925195019752000now
Country
2026
Known then as Receptionist (photography studio and professional office context)
Known then as Receptionist / Front Office Clerk / Telephone Receptionist
Known then as Receptionist / Switchboard Receptionist / Information Clerk
Known then as Receptionist / Front Desk Clerk / Office Receptionist
Known then as Receptionist / Front Desk Coordinator / Administrative Receptionist
Known then as Receptionists and Information Clerks (BLS SOC 43-4171)
Known today as Receptionists and Information Clerks (BLS SOC 43-4171)
Projected to still be called Receptionists and Information Clerks (BLS SOC 43-4171)
Data from the May 2025 survey
US Employment
910K
Est.

Stated in source: BLS OEWS

Official statistic
Report an error
Median Annual Wage
$38,010
Est.

≈ $37,035 in 2024 prices (derived by us, CPI-adjusted)

Official statistic
Report an error
Beat · 1900

The word 'receptionist' entered English in 1900, coined to describe a person hired to receive clients in an office or institution. The earliest documented use was in Wilson's Photographic Magazine, where the role was described in the context of photography studios. The occupation grew from the confluence of two forces: expanding professional offices that needed a dedicated front-of-house person, and the spread of the telephone that required someone to be at the instrument whenever it rang.

Beat · 1920

By the 1920s, the receptionist had become an overwhelmingly female occupation. The gendering of front-desk work followed the broader feminization of clerical labor that occurred in the US between 1900 and 1930: as offices expanded and required more clerical staff, women were hired at lower wages for roles framed as 'service' work. The receptionist's function -- welcoming, soothing, and routing visitors and callers -- mapped onto gender expectations of the era, reinforcing both the feminization of the role and its relatively low pay.

Beat · 1945

The postwar expansion of white-collar employment, driven by the GI Bill, suburban office park development, and growth in professional services and healthcare, dramatically increased demand for receptionists through the late 1940s and 1950s. Every new medical practice, law firm, insurance agency, and corporate regional office needed a front desk. The receptionist became one of the most numerically common female occupations in the United States by 1960.

Beat · 1965

The Equal Pay Act (1963) and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (1964) nominally applied to receptionist wages, but enforcement was slow and the occupation remained low-paid relative to comparable work performed by men. The women's rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s brought demands for better pay and treatment for secretaries, receptionists, and other clerical workers, with the '9 to 5' movement (later the basis for the 1980 film) organizing clerical workers around wage equity and workplace dignity. Wage gains were modest; the real-wage gap between receptionists and professional workers widened through this period.

Beat · 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic (2020-21) caused the sharpest single-year employment disruption in the history of the receptionist occupation. With offices closed, medical practices running reduced-capacity protocols, and hotels at historic low occupancy, receptionist employment fell sharply in 2020. The pandemic simultaneously accelerated two structural trends that continued post-recovery: remote-work adoption reduced the number of in-person office visits requiring front-desk management, and contactless check-in requirements drove rapid deployment of visitor management kiosks in settings that had previously resisted them.

Beat · 2024

Healthcare and social assistance is the largest single employer of receptionists, accounting for approximately 31% of the 43-4171 workforce in 2024. This sector concentration gives the occupation both resilience and vulnerability: healthcare front desks are unlikely to disappear entirely because physical presence in a clinic or hospital carries genuine value, but the healthcare sector was also the fastest-adopting segment for AI phone receptionists in 2023-26, with 38% of practices deploying AI phone answering or scheduling by early 2026.

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 receptionists? 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
-1.7%
BLS National Employment Matrix, 2025-35 cycle, line for SOC 43-4171 (Receptionists and information clerks): 947.5 thousand jobs in 2025, projected 931.6 thousand in 2035, a change of -16.0 thousand (-1.7%). Matrix employment counts all jobs in the occupation, including self-employed workers (0.7% 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.
Eloundou et al. (2023), "GPTs are GPTs"
2023 study · Share of tasks exposed to LLMs (β, human-rated)
58.3%
of tasks
What this measures

Published occupation-level exposure from the paper's occ_level.csv for O*NET-SOC 43-4171.00 Receptionists and Information Clerks. Shown: human-rated β = 0.583, 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) 0.433 and γ (all LLM-assisted) 0.733; GPT-4-rated β 0.533. 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 receptionists

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

AI is taking this onHandle inbound calls that AI phone systems (RingCentral AIR, Goodcall, voiceOC) transferred to a human -- complex routing requests, distressed callers, multi-leg inquiries, and situations where the caller explicitly requested a person -- while reviewing AI call summaries and CRM logs for accuracy.

Handle inbound calls that AI phone systems (RingCentral AIR, Goodcall, voiceOC) transferred to a human -- complex routing requests, distressed callers, multi-leg inquiries, and situations where the caller explicitly requested a person -- while reviewing AI call summaries and CRM logs for accuracy.[2],[3]

Where your edge is

The calls reaching you are the ones the AI could not close -- which means they are harder and more varied than what the old switchboard job required. Develop a structured triage habit: read the AI call summary before you speak, classify the issue in five seconds, and apply the right resolution path. Your speed on complex cases is measurable and visible to supervisors; make it your primary performance metric.

AI is taking this onManage appointment calendars in settings where AI scheduling tools (Calendly AI, RingCentral AIR appointment booking, medical scheduling AI) have not been deployed or have failed -- handling complex scheduling conflicts, multi-party bookings, and last-minute rescheduling that requires judgment and direct communication with the parties involved.

Manage appointment calendars in settings where AI scheduling tools (Calendly AI, RingCentral AIR appointment booking, medical scheduling AI) have not been deployed or have failed -- handling complex scheduling conflicts, multi-party bookings, and last-minute rescheduling that requires judgment and direct communication with the parties involved.[9],[4],[10]

Where your edge is

Learn the scheduling integrations your employer uses and position yourself as the person who manages the system, not just the person who books appointments. Receptionists who can configure Calendly or the practice management software, train new staff on it, and troubleshoot integration failures are doing a job that AI cannot do for itself -- and they are harder to replace.

AI is sitting alongside you hereAnswer non-routine information requests that AI phone and chat systems cannot resolve -- unusual department routing, complex visitor situations, organizational information not in the AI knowledge base, and inquiries requiring relationship knowledge or real-time judgment about who to involve.

Answer non-routine information requests that AI phone and chat systems cannot resolve -- unusual department routing, complex visitor situations, organizational information not in the AI knowledge base, and inquiries requiring relationship knowledge or real-time judgment about who to involve.[11],[7]

Where your edge is

Build deep organizational knowledge that no AI system has -- the informal networks, the people who actually know things, the shortcuts and exceptions that are not in any knowledge base. The receptionist who can say "actually, for that you want to ask Maria in Finance, not the main number" is irreplaceable. Cultivate those relationships deliberately.

Where receptionists go next

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

What each move takes

Receptionists who adopt AI tools and demonstrate organizational competency are naturally positioned for first-line supervisor roles over office and administrative support staff. The path is organic: experienced receptionists who understand both the human-facing and AI-tool layers of front desk operations are exactly what employers need to manage hybrid AI-and-human admin teams. The pay uplift is meaningful -- supervisors earn a median premium over the receptionist floor -- and the stability is higher because management roles compress more slowly than the volume-processing work they oversee.

What you'd add
  • · Staff scheduling and performance monitoring (shift management, coverage planning)
  • · Office workflow documentation (writing and maintaining SOPs for AI and human tasks)
  • · Conflict resolution and disciplinary conversation basics (HR fundamentals)
  • · Budget tracking for supplies and vendor management (basic Excel or Google Sheets)
  • · Certified Administrative Professional (CAP) credential (IAAP, approximately $300 exam fee)
What it takesSome new skills to pick up
Tools of the era

How has the work of receptionists changed since 1900?

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

  • Manual telephone switchboard and appointment ledger

    The first generation of receptionists operated a physical switchboard: a panel of jacks, cords, and keys that connected callers to the right office by physically plugging copper wire into the correct socket. Large organizations had dedicated telephone operators for this function; small professional offices combined the switchboard with front-desk duties under a single person. The appointment ledger -- a handwritten book organized by day and time -- was the scheduling tool. Confirming an appointment meant writing it in ink, erasing if cancelled, and keeping the book legible enough that anyone could cover for the receptionist. The core skill was memory and interpersonal fluency: knowing which doctor was in surgery, which lawyer was in conference, and which client needed to be told to wait without feeling dismissed.

  • PABX (Private Automated Branch Exchange) -- automatic internal call routing

    The PABX (Private Automated Branch Exchange) was introduced in the early 1960s to handle internal office calls without requiring a human operator. For the first time, employees could dial each other directly on an extension; the receptionist no longer had to manually connect every internal call. By the mid-1970s, electronic switching had replaced the large manual boards in most corporate offices. This did not eliminate the receptionist -- external callers still arrived at a switchboard position, and someone still had to greet visitors at the front -- but it fundamentally changed the workload: the PBX operator became a front-desk coordinator rather than a telephone routing specialist. The role shed its most machine-like task and kept its most human one.

    Effect on the work

    The PABX eliminated the dedicated telephone operator role in most small and mid-size organizations, consolidating telephone duties with the front-desk function. Telephone operator employment (a separate BLS category) declined between 1970 and 1980 as PABX spread; receptionist employment continued to grow because visitor management and information provision were not automated.

  • PC + voicemail + electronic scheduling (Word, early EHR, Outlook)

    The personal computer arrived on the reception desk in the early-to-mid 1980s, first as a word processor and then as the front end of an office management system. In medical and dental practices, the PC became the patient scheduling and billing terminal. In corporate offices, it became the email inbox and calendar. Voicemail systems (deployed widely through the mid-1980s) absorbed the after-hours and overflow call volume that had previously required a human to answer. Microsoft Outlook and calendar-sharing arrived in the late 1990s and shifted some appointment-setting tasks to email and online calendars. The net effect was additive rather than subtractive: the receptionist gained new software tools without losing existing visitor-management and information-provision duties, and the new tools expanded the scope of what a single receptionist could handle.

  • IVR systems + online scheduling portals (automated call trees, practice management software)

    Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems -- automated call trees ("Press 1 for appointments, Press 2 for billing") -- became standard in healthcare and large organizations through the 2000s, routing a significant portion of inbound calls without human intervention. Online patient portals and appointment-scheduling websites (ZocDoc launched 2007; most major EHR vendors added patient portals by 2012) moved routine appointment booking to self-service digital channels. For the receptionist, the practical effect was a shift in the inbound call mix: routine inquiries increasingly went to IVR or the web, leaving the receptionist to handle the calls that required judgment -- scheduling conflicts, urgent needs, and callers who could not navigate the automated systems. Employment held largely steady through this period, suggesting that the automation of the simplest tasks did not reduce headcount but rather shifted the average complexity of what the human handled.

  • Digital visitor management kiosks (Envoy, Greetly, ALICE Receptionist)

    Tablet-based visitor management systems -- Envoy (founded 2013, wide deployment by 2015), Greetly, and ALICE Receptionist -- replaced the paper sign-in sheet and, in many cases, the receptionist's physical presence for routine visitor arrivals. A visitor approaching the kiosk signs in digitally, receives a badge, has their identity checked against a watchlist, signs any required NDAs, and receives a host notification -- all without human involvement. For offices with predictable visitor flows and low walk-in complexity, these systems reduced or eliminated the need for a dedicated front-desk person during business hours. The pandemic (2020-21) dramatically accelerated kiosk adoption because contactless check-in solved a public-health problem, bringing digital visitor management into settings (medical offices, government buildings) that had previously resisted it.

    Effect on the work

    Visitor management kiosks did not eliminate receptionist positions in isolation, but they contributed to the consolidation of front-desk functions: one receptionist could now oversee a kiosk-assisted lobby that previously required two, and smaller offices that previously needed a part-time receptionist for visitor sign-in could run without one for portions of the day. The BLS employment plateau from roughly 2010-2020 reflects this partial displacement.

  • AI voice receptionists + scheduling bots (RingCentral AIR, Goodcall, Calendly AI)

    AI voice receptionists represent a qualitatively different threat than anything the receptionist occupation has faced before. Earlier technologies automated a single task (the PBX removed internal call routing; the kiosk removed visitor sign-in) while leaving the overall role intact. AI voice systems -- RingCentral AI Receptionist (AIR, launched November 2024), Goodcall, and similar products -- can answer every inbound call around the clock, identify caller intent in natural language, provide business information, route calls with context summaries, book appointments directly into calendar systems, send SMS confirmations, and handle routine FAQ queries. As of May 2026, RingCentral AIR serves 11,800-plus businesses, with deployment growing 44% quarter-over-quarter. Deloitte healthcare data (via aggregators) indicates that 70% of routine calls require no human intervention when AI systems are properly configured. The tasks remaining for human receptionists in AI-augmented settings are those that require physical presence (packages, distressed walk-ins, lobby logistics), emotional de-escalation in high-stakes contexts, and complex multi-party coordination that voice AI still resolves unreliably.

    Effect on the work

    McKinsey (2025) projected that demand for clerks including receptionists could fall by 1.6 million positions as AI automation matures. The BLS "little or no change" projection for 2024-34 is the most conservative of the major forecasts; Goldman Sachs and McKinsey scenarios suggest a more meaningful contraction in the clerical-administrative cluster.

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Receptionists and Information Clerks employment and pay by year

On record since1900
Latest US employment910,180 (May 2025)Source: BLS OEWS May 2025Official statisticReport an error
Latest US median pay$38,010 (May 2025)Source: BLS OEWS May 2025Official statisticReport an error
Outlook-1.7% by 2035Source: BLS Employment Projections 2025-35Official statisticReport an error

In other countries

The latest figure each country's statistics agency publishes for this job. Each uses its own occupation definition, survey basis and currency, so the numbers are not directly comparable with each other or with the US figures.

  • United Kingdom (UK SOC 4216)

    Employment, 2025
    185,000, ONS ASHE 2025 Official statistic Report an errorONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (Table 14): employee jobs in SOC 4216 Receptionists, United Kingdom, 2025 (ASHE "number of jobs", thousands x1000; excludes self-employment). Open Government Licence v3.0.
    Median pay, 2025
    £18,152, ONS ASHE 2025 Official statistic Report an errorONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (Table 14.7a): median gross annual pay for all employee jobs in SOC 4216 Receptionists, United Kingdom, 2025. Open Government Licence v3.0.
  • Australia (ANZSCO 5421)

    Employment, 2025
    179,700, ABS Labour Force Survey Official statistic Report an errorABS Labour Force Survey (Detailed), table EQ08: employed persons in ANZSCO 5421 Receptionists, national (summed across sex and state/territory), annual average of 4 quarterly estimates.
    Median pay, 2025
    A$63,908, ABS Employee Earnings May 2025 Official statistic Report an errorAnnualised (x52) from A$1,229 median weekly earnings. ABS Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours, May 2025: median pay for full-time non-managerial employees paid at the adult rate, before tax. Surfaced via the Jobs and Skills Australia occupation profile.
View all 33 years of cited US data, each linked to its source
YearUS employmentAnnual pay (median unless marked)SourceReport
1950200,000n/aEst., FRASER / US BLS Bulletin 253 Researched contextReport
1956n/a$2,600Est., University of Missouri Libraries Researched contextReport
1970450,000n/aEst., BLS OOH Researched contextReport
1972n/a$5,616 (average)BLS CPS 1972 Researched contextReport
1974n/a$5,876 (average)BLS CPS 1974 Researched contextReport
1978n/a$8,060 (average)BLS CPS 1978 Researched contextReport
1980n/a$9,724 (average)BLS CPS 1980 Researched contextReport
1990900,000$17,000Decennial Census (employment) Researched contextEst., University of Missouri Libraries (pay) Researched contextReport
1999n/a$21,075Census 2000 Researched contextReport
20001,054,300$20,040BLS OEWS 2000 Official statisticReport
20031,058,790$21,320BLS OEWS May 2003 Official statisticReport
20041,071,230$21,830BLS OEWS May 2004 Official statisticReport
20051,088,400$22,150BLS OEWS May 2005 Official statisticReport
20061,112,350$22,900BLS OEWS May 2006 Official statisticReport
20071,100,790$23,710BLS OEWS May 2007 Official statisticReport
20081,097,610$24,550BLS OEWS May 2008 Official statisticReport
20091,052,120$25,070BLS OEWS May 2009 Official statisticReport
2010997,080$25,240BLS OEWS May 2010 Official statisticReport
2011973,800$25,690BLS OEWS May 2011 Official statisticReport
2012966,150$25,990BLS OEWS May 2012 Official statisticReport
2013973,580$26,410BLS OEWS May 2013 Official statisticReport
2014981,150$26,760BLS OEWS May 2014 Official statisticReport
2015975,890$27,300BLS OEWS May 2015 Official statisticReport
2016997,770$27,920BLS OEWS May 2016 Official statisticReport
20171,014,900$28,390BLS OEWS May 2017 Official statisticReport
20181,043,630$29,140BLS OEWS May 2018 Official statisticReport
20191,057,370$30,050BLS OEWS May 2019 Official statisticReport
2020968,420$31,110BLS OEWS May 2020 Official statisticReport
2021983,150$29,950BLS OEWS May 2021 Official statisticReport
20221,011,170$33,960BLS OEWS May 2022 Official statisticReport
20231,003,820$35,840BLS OEWS May 2023 Official statisticReport
2024964,530$37,230BLS OEWS May 2024 Official statisticReport
2025910,180$38,010BLS OEWS May 2025 Official statisticReport
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