April 27 is Professional Assistant Day in the United States—a chance for executives to recognize and say “thank you” to their virtual and on-site productivity partners.
To mark the occasion, here are some surprising statistics about the executive assistant role.
- There are more than 2.3 million executive assistants in the US (Labor Department).
- There were 5.4 million executive assistants in the US in 2000 (Labor Department).
- The job growth projection for executive assistants is –7% (Labor Department).
- 86.6% are female, and 13.4% are male (Zippia).
- The ethnicities of US executive assistants are (Zippia):
- White: 75.5%
- Hispanic or Latino: 10.4%
- Black or African American: 7.1%
- Asian: 4.6%
- Unknown: 1.9%
- American Indian and Alaska Native: 0.5%
- The average tenure of US executive assistants is 23 months (Zippia).
- The #1 reason executive assistants quit is that they do not like their boss (C-suite Assistants).
- It takes 33 days to hire an in-person executive assistant. (LinkedIn).
- It takes three months to onboard a new executive assistant (C-suite Assistants).
- There are 5,000 virtual assistants listed on Upwork (Upwork).
- Businesses save 78% by hiring virtual assistants (99 Firms).
- 60% of virtual assistants have a college degree (Outsource Access).
- There are 5,000 virtual assistant companies (Clutch).
- The virtual assistant market grew 41% in 2020 (Nanoglobals).
Be kind to your executive assistant if you are lucky enough to have one. The traditional executive assistant is increasingly hard to find or replace in the United States. The good news is that there are a lot of people in the rest of the world eager for the opportunity to work remotely with US businesses, and technology makes it easy to connect talented people with meaningful job opportunities.
And be kind to your virtual assistant too. You might not see them in person every day, but they work hard behind the scenes to give you time to work on your business instead of in your business! Show your appreciation for your virtual assistant today!
Read More: Essential Virtual Assistant Statistics