---
title: "Marine Clerk"
description: "A union port worker who tracks containers and cargo on a marine terminal, handling gate transactions, yard inventory, and vessel loading plans."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/marine-clerk"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Marine Clerk

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

A union port worker who tracks containers and cargo on a marine terminal, handling gate transactions, yard inventory, and vessel loading plans.

Also advertised as: Longshore Clerk; ILWU Marine Clerk; Terminal Clerk; Vessel Planner (Union); Gate Clerk.

## 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/marine-clerk/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/marine-clerk.

## 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

- Process trucks and containers through terminal gates
- Verify container numbers, seals, and shipping documents
- Record container locations and update yard inventory
- Help prepare vessel loading and unloading plans
- Check cargo against manifests and report damage or discrepancies
- Coordinate moves with longshore workers and terminal supervisors
- Operate terminal operating system software

## 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 | 3.92 |
| 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 | 89.5 |
| ISTJ | 81.4 |
| ESFJ | 77.9 |
| ISFJ | 76.3 |
| ESTP | 60.3 |

Best-fitting types: ESTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Cargo and Freight Agent](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cargo-and-freight-agent) — median $52,260
- [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

## 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/marine-clerk