---
title: "Human Resources Assistant, Except Payroll and Timekeeping"
description: "Compile and keep personnel records. Record data for each employee, such as address, weekly earnings, absences, amount of sales or production, supervisory…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/human-resources-assistant"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Human Resources Assistant, Except Payroll and Timekeeping

**Category:** Office and Administrative Support · **SOC code:** 43-4161 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 43-4161.00

Compile and keep personnel records. Record data for each employee, such as address, weekly earnings, absences, amount of sales or production, supervisory reports, and date of and reason for termination. May prepare reports for employment records, file employment records, or search employee files and furnish information to authorized persons.

Also advertised as: Human Resources Administrative Assistant (HR Administrative Assistant); Human Resources Assistant (HR Assistant); Human Resources Associate (HR Associate); Personnel Clerk.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $50,610 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $24.33/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $37,340 to $68,280, with the middle half between $44,030 and $59,800
- **Total US employment:** 90,220
- **Typical entry education:** Associate's
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -6.2% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 7,900 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 17/100 — 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 90,220 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $37,340 |
| 25th | $44,030 |
| 50th (median) | $50,610 |
| 75th | $59,800 |
| 90th | $68,280 |
| Mean (average) | $52,250 |

### 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 | $59,050 | $53,730 | 610 |
| CA | $57,590 | $52,014 | 11,490 |
| WA | $57,390 | $53,629 | 2,350 |
| MD | $56,880 | $54,193 | 1,480 |
| AK | $56,510 | $55,208 | 260 |
| RI | $56,370 | $55,113 | 150 |
| MA | $55,840 | $52,800 | 1,400 |
| CO | $54,880 | $53,255 | 1,660 |
| MN | $54,520 | $55,282 | 3,380 |
| NJ | $54,410 | $50,007 | 4,000 |
| CT | $54,130 | $52,244 | 910 |
| OR | $53,550 | $51,809 | 1,050 |
| ND | $53,000 | $59,578 | 110 |
| NY | $52,920 | $49,036 | 8,800 |
| VA | $51,950 | $51,383 | 2,160 |

38 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 53 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/human-resources-assistant/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/human-resources-assistant.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 96,500 in the 2025–2035 base year to 90,500 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 6,000 jobs, or -6.2%. Declining: -6.2% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 7,900 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:** Associate's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Some preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

### 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 | 33.8% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 27.4% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 21.1% |
| Some College Courses | 11.2% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 5.7% |
| Master's Degree | 0.8% |

## What the work involves

- Examine employee files to answer inquiries and provide information for personnel actions.
- Explain company personnel policies, benefits, and procedures to employees or job applicants.
- Answer questions regarding examinations, eligibility, salaries, benefits, and other pertinent information.
- Process, verify, and maintain personnel related documentation, including staffing, recruitment, training, grievances, performance evaluations, classifications, and employee leaves of absence.
- Gather personnel records from other departments or employees.
- Record data for each employee, including such information as addresses, weekly earnings, absences, amount of sales or production, supervisory reports on performance, and dates of and reasons for terminations.
- Search employee files to obtain information for authorized persons and organizations, such as credit bureaus and finance companies.
- Provide assistance in administering employee benefit programs and worker's compensation plans.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.5 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.

- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.1 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
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Personnel and Human Resources — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 2.9 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
- Written Expression — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.6 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), Social (S).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| C — Conventional | 7.00 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.91 |
| S — Social | 3.24 |
| R — Realistic | 1.43 |
| I — Investigative | 1.35 |
| 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ESFJ | 82.4 |
| ESTJ | 80.3 |
| ISFJ | 77.7 |
| ISTJ | 68.6 |
| ENFJ | 59.0 |

Best-fitting types: ESFJ, ESTJ, ISFJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Human Resources Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/human-resources-specialist) — median $75,940
- [Human Resources Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/human-resources-manager) — median $149,280
- [Eligibility Interviewer, Government Programs](https://nuecareer.com/careers/eligibility-interviewer-government-programs) — median $54,210
- [Payroll and Timekeeping Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/payroll-and-timekeeping-clerk) — median $58,260
- [Compensation, Benefit, and Job Analysis Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/compensation-benefit-and-job-analysis-specialist) — median $78,210
- [First-Line Supervisor of Office and Administrative Support Workers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-office-and-administrative-support-workers) — median $69,500
- [Executive Secretary and Executive Administrative Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/executive-secretary-and-executive-administrative-assistant) — median $76,590
- [Compensation and Benefits Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/compensation-and-benefits-manager) — median $149,230
- [Administrative Services Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/administrative-services-manager) — median $114,130
- [Secretary and Administrative Assistant, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive](https://nuecareer.com/careers/secretary-and-administrative-assistant) — median $47,540

## 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/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025–2035 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **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/human-resources-assistant