---
title: "Cargo and Freight Agent"
description: "Expedite and route movement of incoming and outgoing cargo and freight shipments in airline, train, and trucking terminals and shipping docks. Take…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/cargo-and-freight-agent"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Cargo and Freight Agent

**Category:** Office and Administrative Support · **SOC code:** 43-5011 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 43-5011.00

Expedite and route movement of incoming and outgoing cargo and freight shipments in airline, train, and trucking terminals and shipping docks. Take orders from customers and arrange pickup of freight and cargo for delivery to loading platform. Prepare and examine bills of lading to determine shipping charges and tariffs.

Also advertised as: Air Export Specialist; Drop Shipment Clerk; Freight Broker; Intermodal Dispatcher; International Coordinator; Load Planner; Logistics Coordinator; Logistics Service Representative.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $52,260 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $25.13/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $38,340 to $79,810, with the middle half between $45,710 and $63,390
- **Total US employment:** 97,670
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +6.2% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 9,000 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 44/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 97,670 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $38,340 |
| 25th | $45,710 |
| 50th (median) | $52,260 |
| 75th | $63,390 |
| 90th | $79,810 |
| Mean (average) | $57,230 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DC | $76,250 | $69,381 | 60 |
| NH | $67,660 | $64,955 | 80 |
| SD | $64,340 | $72,630 | 200 |
| NE | $62,500 | $69,365 | 390 |
| WA | $60,760 | $56,778 | 2,410 |
| RI | $60,310 | $58,966 | 140 |
| NJ | $60,210 | $55,338 | 4,280 |
| NY | $60,040 | $55,633 | 5,760 |
| IL | $59,750 | $59,775 | 6,110 |
| MT | $59,240 | $62,592 | 370 |
| MA | $58,680 | $55,486 | 820 |
| MN | $58,650 | $59,470 | 1,380 |
| CA | $57,690 | $52,104 | 17,060 |
| WI | $57,290 | $60,885 | 1,280 |
| SC | $57,000 | $60,801 | 1,540 |

36 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 51 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/cargo-and-freight-agent/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/cargo-and-freight-agent.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 100,300 in the 2025–2035 base year to 106,400 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 6,200 jobs, or +6.2%. Faster than average: 6.2% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 9,000 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Short-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 30.8% |
| Some College Courses | 19.2% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 18.1% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 18.1% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 12.2% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 1.7% |

## What the work involves

- Negotiate and arrange transport of goods with shipping or freight companies.
- Advise clients on transportation and payment methods.
- Determine method of shipment and prepare bills of lading, invoices, and other shipping documents.
- Track delivery progress of shipments.
- Keep records of all goods shipped, received, and stored.
- Estimate freight or postal rates and record shipment costs and weights.
- Notify consignees, passengers, or customers of freight or baggage arrival and arrange for delivery.
- Enter shipping information into a computer by hand or by a hand-held scanner that reads bar codes on goods.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Speaking — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Negotiation — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Transportation — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Geography — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Conventional (C), Enterprising (E), Realistic (R).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| C — Conventional | 6.32 |
| E — Enterprising | 4.83 |
| R — Realistic | 3.15 |
| S — Social | 2.14 |
| I — Investigative | 1.52 |
| A — Artistic | 1.00 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ESTJ | 88.5 |
| ESFJ | 78.9 |
| ISTJ | 78.6 |
| ISFJ | 75.2 |
| ENTJ | 61.7 |

Best-fitting types: ESTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Freight Forwarder](https://nuecareer.com/careers/freight-forwarder) — median $52,260
- [Shipping, Receiving, and Inventory Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/shipping-receiving-and-inventory-clerk) — median $45,260
- [Customs Broker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/customs-broker) — median $80,730
- [Aircraft Cargo Handling Supervisor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/aircraft-cargo-handling-supervisor) — median $58,170
- [Postal Service Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/postal-service-clerk) — median $62,130
- [Postal Service Mail Carrier](https://nuecareer.com/careers/postal-service-mail-carrier) — median $60,550
- [Light Truck Driver](https://nuecareer.com/careers/light-truck-driver) — median $44,860
- [Postal Service Mail Sorter, Processor, and Processing Machine Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/postal-service-mail-sorter-processor-and-processing-machine-operator) — median $58,470
- [Dispatcher](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dispatcher) — median $50,340
- [Order Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/order-clerk) — median $46,170

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/cargo-and-freight-agent