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OCR for page 223
Recent Trends in Clerical Employment:
The Impact of Technological Change
H. ALLAN HUNT and TIMOTHY L. HUNT
THE GROWTH OF CLERICAL AND
FEMALE EMPLOYMENT
Clerical jobs are the largest single occupational group in the
economy; they are also one of the most diverse. Generally people
associate the traditional office occupations with the term "cleri-
cal." Indeed, secretaries, typists, stenographers, file clerks, office
machine operators, and receptionists do make up a large propor-
tion of all clerical workers. But bookkeepers and bank tellers
are also clerical workers according to the Bureau of the Census,
as are bill collectors, insurance adjusters, postal carriers, factory
expediters, and most enumerators and interviewers.
The tremendous growth in the number of clerical workers
in the United States is well known, but the true magnitude of
this expansion cannot be appreciated without comparing it to the
growth in total employment. Figure 1 shows that the proportion
Facts and-observations presented in this document are the sole respon-
sibility of the authors. The viewpoints do not necessarily represent positions
of the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
223
OCR for page 224
224
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RECENT TRENDS IN CLERICAL EMPLOYMENT
; _
1 940 1 950 1 960 1 970 1 980
YEAR
FIGURE 1 Decadal growth in clerical employment as a proportion of total
employment, 1940-1980. Source: Hunt and Hunt (1986~; based on 1940-1980
census data.
of clerical workers in total employment has doubled in the last 40
years, from just under 1 employee in 10 in 1940 to 1 in 5 by 1980.
However, the general recessionary conditions of the last 5 years
combined with developments of the last 10 years or so in office
technology raise one of the most puzzling questions about future
employment: Will this trend continue?
Those who are convinced that this trend cannot continue and
may reverse itself base their predictions primarily on the introduc-
tion to the office of microprocessor-based technologies. The incred-
ible reductions in the cost of computing power, combined with the
reductions in bulk made possible by microprocessor technology,
may possibly constitute a revolutionary technical development.
And there has been an apparent reduction in the rate of increase
in the proportion of clerical workers. As Figure 1 indicates, while
the clerical proportion rose almost linearly from 1940 to 1970,
a slight reduction in the rate of increase occurred between 1970
and 1980. Is this the beginning of the end of clerical employment
growth? If so, what will be the impact on women workers?
OCR for page 225
H. ALLAN HUNT AND TIMOTHYL. HUNT
225
Clerical jobs are also female jobs. Is it a coincidence that the
expansion of clerical employment occurred simultaneously with
the expansion of female labor force participation rates? To what
extent have female job opportunities been linked to the expansion
of the clerical work force? The overwhelming majority of clerical
workers are in fact female, and this is even more true today than
it was 30 years ago: from just over 60 percent female in 1950, the
proportion grew to nearly 80 percent by 1980. Indeed, not only are
clerical workers increasingly women but women are increasingly
clerical workers. Between 1950 and 1980, the proportion of women
workers who worked in clerical jobs grew from about 27 percent to
over 35 percent. Thus, the sex segregation of clerical occupations
appears to have been increasing, although there was very little
increase in the proportion of females employed as clerical workers
between 1970 and 1980.i The participation rate for men in clerical
work was only 7.6 percent in 1980. Clearly, females are much more
likely than males to work as clerical workers and clerical work has
increased in importance as a source of employment for women.
This paper reviews trends in clerical employment over the
last 30 years and seeks evidence of the impact of changes in pro-
cess technology on those trends. It also assesses prospects for the
future of clerical employment. The next section reviews clerical
employment trends from 1950 to 1980 by decade, as well as annual
employment changes.2 Because this period encompasses the first
computer revolution, the introduction of mainframe computers to
the office, and the beginnings of the microcomputer age, the review
can be interpreted as a search for the employment effects of tech-
nological change. If changing office technologies displaced large
numbers of clerical workers during the first computer revolution,
the evidence should be in the employment record of the 1960s and
1970s. Similarly, if the current office technologies threaten clerical
jobs, some evidence of this should be found in the employment
figures of the early 1980s.
The following section of the paper discusses the determinants
of clerical employment in the broadest sense. The influence of
industry occupational structure and industry employment trends
~ See Reskin and Hartmann (1985) for a discussion of sex segregation on
the job.
2 A much more thorough review of existing data is provided by Hunt and
Hunt (1986:Ch. 2 and 3~.
OCR for page 226
226
RECENT TRENDS IN CLERICAL EMPLOYMENT
on clerical employment totals are examined. The aggregate change
in clerical employment from 1972 to 1982 is decomposed into
portions attributable to general economic growth, changes in the
sectoral composition of the economy, and changes in occupational
staking patterns. Evidence of the direct impact of technological
change on office employment levels is sought for the finance and
insurance industry, reputedly the most advanced user of office
automation systems.
This paper does not try to assess the influence of other impor-
tant factors that will determine future labor market outcomes for
clerical workers. In particular, there is no consideration of future
supply issues. If female labor force participation rates continue to
rise as they have in the past, the issue of job creation for women
will be of even greater significance. On the other hand, if women
increase their penetration of nontraditional female occupations,
the number of females seeking clerical positions in the future may
decline. Whether men are more likely to begin to look to cler-
ical positions for career opportunities in the future presumably
depends on labor market developments for clericals, as well as the
job outlook in more traditional male occupations.3 Clearly these
considerations are crucial to understanding whether the supply
and demand of clerical workers will be in approximate balance in
the labor market of the future, but these questions are beyond the
scope of the present effort. We seek only to illuminate past trends
in clerical employment and investigate the causes behind those
trends. Throughout the analysis we strive to develop an under-
standing of the employment implications of technological change
for clerical workers. In a concluding section, we draw on these find-
ings and on a review of existing forecasts of clerical employment to
narrow the range of uncertainty about the probable future impact
of technological change on the demand for clerical employment.
A CLOSER LOOK AT CLERICAL EMPLOYMENT TRENDS
EMPLOYMENT FROM 19 5 0 TO 1 9 8 0
DECENNIAL CENSUS DATA
Table 1 reports the best derivable estimates of detailed cler-
ical employment on a consistent basis across the 1950 to 1980
3 Many of these issues are addressed by Hartmann, Kraut, and Tilly
(1986).
OCR for page 227
H. ALLAN HUNT AND TIMOTHYL. HUNT
227
time span. These figures are based on data from the decennial
censuses, and although they are far from perfect, everything that
can be done has been done to maximize the consistency of the
estimates and minimize the distortions introduced by the mea-
surement system and changes in it.4 Table 1 shows that there
were just over 19 million clerical workers employed in 1980 in 42
separate clerical occupations ranging from secretary, the largest, to
tabulating machine operator, the smallest. There were more than
4 million secretaries employed in 1980; they represented just over
4 Because these data have been adjusted rather extensively for consis-
tency, the figures reported here do not correspond exactly with census
figures from other sources. Comparisons of occupational data among decen-
nial censuses are complicated, first, because the data came from a sample
of all census respondents (though the numbers are very large by normal
sampling standards), and second, because the measuring rod, the occupa-
tional classification system, changes between censuses. In 1950, occupational
employment was tabulated in 12 major groups and 469 detailed occupa-
tional categories. In 1960, the same 12 major groups contained 494 detailed
occupations; in 1970 there were only 417 detailed occupations but still ac-
cumulated into 12 major occupational groups. The overall changes in the
classification system can be regarded as relatively minor over this period,
although with regard to individual occupations, major distortions can occur
when an occupational category is added or deleted. In 1980, however, the
magnitude of the differences in the occupational coding system are enor-
mous: 503 detailed occupations, which have been reshuffled into 13 new
major groups. For example, cashiers, who have previously been classified
as clerical workers, are reclassified as sales workers; 1.65 million workers
are thereby moved from one major occupational group to another. For the
first time, there is a fundamental lack of consistency at the major occu-
pational group level between adjacent census observations. To convert all
occupational employment numbers to a consistent basis, the classification
system of 1970 was chosen as the standard upon the advice of the Bureau of
the Census. The comparison between 1960 and 1970 employment in terms
of the 1970 classification was readily available from the Bureau (Bureau
of the Census, 1972:Table 221, and Priebe et al., 1972~. The 1950 census
employment could not be converted directly into 1970 categories, and were
first reclassified into 1960 terms, using '' technical Paper No. 18; then those
numbers were converted to the 1970' basis using Priebe et al. (1972~. The
1980 data were converted to the 1970 basis- using preliminary unpublished
results from the Census Bureau. It requires a painstaking effort to bridge
from one decennial census to the next in this manner, and the accuracy of
the results is uncertain. All of the reclassification work is done on the- basis
of sample results. The reclassified employment figures are thus subject both
to the original sampling error in estimating occupational employment and
the secondary sampling error involved ' in the reclassification study. These
issues are discussed more fully in Hunt and Hunt (1986:Ch. 2~.
OCR for page 228
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OCR for page 230
230
RECENT TRENDS IN CLERICAL EMPLO YMENT
4 percent of total employment and 21 percent of clerical employ-
ment in that year. The second largest category was bookkeepers,
with about 1.8 million employed, followed by cashiers, with 1.7
million. The only other clerical occupation that has approached 1
million employees is typists.
Together, these "big four" clerical occupations accounted for
8.5 million jobs, or about 45 percent of all clerical employment in
1980. These same four occupations accounted for only 27 percent
of clerical employment in 1950; all four of these occupations have
grown substantially in employment during the last 30 years. On
the other end of the scale in terms of size, there were only about
3,300 tabulating machine operators and about 7,600 telegraph op-
erators employed in 1980. These occupations have been declining
for some years, as have the next two smallest occupations, dupli-
cating machine operators and calculating machine operators. Each
of these occupations has been adversely impacted hv ~.h~.n~.c: in
technology.
~ ¢ ~ ~ ~) ~^ ~~A b—= 111
When these same data for the various occupations are ex-
· ~ ·
Omened In terms of their annual compound rates of change in
employment between 1950 and 1980, computer and peripheral
equipment operators far exceeded all other clerical occupations in
their rate of increase. This occupation has grown from an employ-
ment level of 868 persons in 1950 at the dawn of the computer age
to nearly 400,000 persons in 1980, an annual rate of growth of over
22 percent. This is the labor market expression of the computer
revolution, which began to substantially affect employment levels
in computer-related occupations in the 1960s. It is interesting to
note that the second fastest growing clerical occupation over the
1950 to 1980 period was teachers' aides: from high tech to high
touch in one easy step! The number of teachers' aides increased
from 6,000 to over 200,000 in this 30-year period, or about 12
percent per year. The third fastest growing clerical occupation
was typists, even though there was actually a 23 percent decline
in employment from 1970 to 1980. The phenomenal growth of
typists in the 1950s and 1960s was sufficient to offset the recent
decline, for an average annual rate of growth of 9 percent when
the entire 30-year period is considered. Following in order of rate
of growth are library attendants, clerical supervisors, bank tellers,
receptionists, and cashiers. Clearly, there is not a high-tech oc-
cupation among them, although they have all been impacted in
OCR for page 231
H. ALLAN HUNT AND TIMOTHY L. HUNT
231
one way or another by technological change as well as many other
influences.
There were also a few clerical occupations that showed abso-
lute declines during this Midyear period. The most rapid declines
were among stenographers and telegraph operators, declining in
employment by about 5 percent annually. Both occupations have
been impacted by technology, but not in an obvious way. The
telegraph has been all but replaced by superior communications
devices, and this has nearly eliminated the jobs of telegraph oper-
ators. Improvements in dictation equipment and changing habits
of users have spurred the decline in the stenographer occupation.
In 1950, there were 2.3 secretaries per stenographer while by 1980
the ratio had risen to 44 to 1.
Fairly rapid declines were also shown by tabulating machine
operators and weighers. Actually, the tabulating machine opera-
tors would have been the most rapidly retreating if 1960 had been
taken as the base year. This occupation provides an excellent ex-
ample of a technology-specific occupation that experiences rapid
growth and then declines. Tabulating machines were very popu-
lar in the 1950s for analyzing data on punched paper cards. The
number of tabulating machine operators nearly tripled between
1950 and 1960. But data-processing technology moved rapidly
beyond the capabilities of tabulating machines, and the number of
employees in this occupation has fallen by nearly 90 percent since
1960. Rounding out the declining occupations are messengers and
office helpers, calculating machine operators, and telephone op-
erators. All appear to be office-technology-related declines, since
the communications and computing capabilities of modern offices
have rendered these jobs less essential than in the past.
With the spectacular exception of the computer operator cat-
egory, the rapid-growth jobs do not show any particular high-
technology bent. On the other hand, the declining occupations
do seem to offer a technological interpretation, at least in part.
Whether this represents a general principle is not clear at this
time. What is clear is that the bulk of clerical employment occurs
in a few very large, very diffuse occupational titles, such as secre-
tary and bookkeeper. This was more true in 1980 than in 1950.
It is possible that one impact of office technology over the last 30
years has been to foster more generality in job title and perhaps
in duties, but that cannot be conclusively demonstrated with the
data that are currently available.
OCR for page 232
232
RECENT TRENDS IN CLERICAL EMPLOYMENT
ANNUAL EMPLOYMENT CHANGES, CURRENT
POPULATION SURVEY DATA
The long-term decennial census data do not seem to demon-
strate a widespread impact of technology on clerical occupations,
but annual data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) may
be more revealing. Figure 2 shows aggregate clerical employment
as a proportion of total employment on an annual basis from 1958
to 1984. It clearly shows that the rate of increase of clerical work-
ers relative to all employment was much slower in the 1970s than
it was in the 1960s.5 Even more apparent is the stagnation in the
proportion of clerical workers since 1980. Clerical workers did not
fare as well in the last recessionary period as they did earlier. It is
less certain what the downturn in the clerical proportion in 1984
means. Such a decline has been typical of recovery periods in the
past (as in 1976-1977), when the number of production workers
rises rapidly to restore the prerecession balance between produc-
tion and nonproduction workers, including ciericals. Whether the
trend of the early l980s is something different is not yet clear. The
magnitude of the drop is unprecedented, but that does not prove
that the cause is fundamentally different.
A look at recent annual CPS data for detailed occupations
may be instructive. Unfortunately, the only time period for which
this can be done is the decade from 1972 to 1982. If the mi-
croprocessor revolution is going to have catastrophic impacts on
clerical employment, it should have become apparent by 1982
when the microcomputer population reached the 1 million unit
level (Computer and Business Equipment Manufacturers Associ-
ation, 1985:87~. While this period would seem to be adequate
for analysm, it is complicated by the fact that the recession of
1981-1982 occurs right at the end of the period.6 In addition,
because of the smaller sample used by the CPS, some reservation
must be expressed about any particular annual observation. More
5 The ~r~n~r~nt: Harry ;- 1071 ~ ..1~ :~ ~ ~ n . ..
~.~ r I ,-~^ .~vu~~ Lo; 1~,llor1:u as lb resects one conversion
to new census codes rather than any actual change in clerical employment
levels.
6 It is frustrating to stop the analysis in 1982; however, the massive
reorganization of the occupational classification system introduced to the
CPS in 1983 (corresponding to the 1980 decennial census reclassification)
prevents the development of consistent data for all occupations after 1982.
OCR for page 233
H. ALLAN HUNT AND TIMOTHYL. BUNT
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YEAR
233
,~
1968 1972
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FIGURE 2 Annual changes in clerical employment as a proportion of total
employment, 1958-1984. Source: Hunt and Hunt (1986~; based on 1958-1984
CPS data.
confidence can be put in trends that emerge over a period of 3 or
4 years.
Table 2 shows the CPS clerical occupations sorted by the an-
nual rate of change over the 1972-1982 decade. As in the decennial
data for 1950 to 1980, computer and peripheral equipment oper-
ators experienced the most rapid rate of increase of any clerical
occupation, although it^was only about half the average annual
rate shown for the 1950-1980 period. Bank tellers and insur-
ance adjusters, examiners and investigators both edged ahead of
teachers' aides in growth rates during the more recent decade.
This reflects the falloff in the rate of growth in teachers' aides as
employment growth in education as a whole faltered because of
funding difficulties and a reduction in the student population.
Other clerical occupations showing relatively rapid growth
during the 1972 to 1982']ecade include cashiers, estimators and
investigators, and receptionists. All three of these occupations
involve direct customer contact and probably would fall into
the "hard to automate" category. Messengers and office helpers
emerge as a relatively rapidly growing clerical occupation in the
OCR for page 257
H. ALLAN HUNT AND TIMOTHY L. HUNT
257
has slowed significantly. Clerical workers have had a favorable in-
dustry mix in their employment pattern, benefiting from the shift
toward finance and other service-related industries because those
industries employ much higher proportions of clerical workers.
Furthermore, the relative importance of clerical jobs has tended
-to rise within industries. Thus, in the past all the factors have
tended to be positive and the result has been spectacular growth
in clerical employment. Given the rapid growth in clerical jobs
over the last 30 years or so, it appears reasonable to conclude that
many goods and services have been becoming more and more in-
formation intensive per unit of output over time. This has tended
to boost clerical employment.
However, it is clear that the rate of growth of clerical jobs
slowed during the last decade. Clericals did not benefit from the
last recession as they have in earlier recessions, nor are some of
the sectors that are important employers of clericals growing as
fast as they once were. Finally, although office automation may
not be producing a revolution, it should at least contribute to the
slowing of employment growth in these occupations in the future.
Changing staffing ratios, probably the most visible manifesta-
tion of the specific effects of technological change on occupational
employment, had a moderately positive effect on the employment
growth of clerical workers from 1972 to 1982, creating about
450,000 new clerical jobs (compared to about 3 million created
by aggregate economic growth and 600,000 by the concentration
of clerical workers in rapidly growing industries). Although the
net effect of changing staffing ratios on clerical employment was
modestly positive across all industries, there were a few sectors,
notably finance, where the effect was negative. This is taken as
evidence of the adverse impact of technological change on cleri-
cal employment. Investment in this sector has been dramatically
higher than the historical average for that sector for the last 15
years, but measured industry-wide productivity gains in finance
and insurance do not support the thesis that office automation is
having a significant impact. This lack of measured productivity
results remains a puzzle. Nevertheless, future employment may
well be impacted by the capital buildup in this and other sectors
that have traditionally been large employers of clerical workers.
OCR for page 258
258
RECENT TRENDSINCLERICALEMPLOYMENT
A LOOK TOWARD THE FUTURE
It is, of course, risky to attempt to predict what might happen
to clerical employment in the future, but the changes that lie
behind the trends noted above provide some clues, as do recent
forecasts made by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BES) and other
researchers. These will not be fully reviewed here, but their major
conclusions are summarized as part of our assessment of the likely
future for clerical employment. (For a more complete discussion
see Hunt and Hunt, 1986.)
The BES occupational projections represent the most impor-
tant effort of the federal government to anticipate future needs for
specific occupations. The BES methodology is based on a mod-
eling framework that accounts for many economic variables. The
resulting occupational projections are not necessarily superior to
others, but they do have the advantage of being produced in a
comprehensive and reasonably consistent manner. Other forecasts
of clerical employment growth are not nearly as comprehensive as
that of the BES. For example, Leontief and Duchin (1986) of New
York University analyze the impacts of computer automation on
employment from 1963 to 2000. Their research is limited to cer-
tain specified computer technologies and does not consider other
productivity-enhancing technologies or any other source of produc-
tivity growth. Roessner et al. (1985) of the Georgia Institute of
Technology, examines clerical jobs in two industries, banking and
insurance. Finally, Drennan (1983) of Columbia University looks
at clerical employment in six industries. His projection methodol-
ogy utilizes extrapolation of historical trends after accounting for
the effects of the 1980-1982 recession.
The BES anticipates near average growth for clerical jobs.
Between 1982 and 1995, BES anticipates an average growth in
employment of 28.1 percent. Growth in employment of clerical
occupations is anticipated to be 26.5 percent. The effect of differ-
ential rates of industry growth is expected to be slightly positive
at 1.6 percent (smaller than their contribution between 1972 and
1982~. The effect of changing staffing ratios is expected to be
negative at minus 3.1 percent. In fact, all the existing forecasts of
employment in clerical occupations are unanimous in predicting
that staffing ratios for clerical jobs will decline in the years ahead,
presumably because of office automation. The fall in staffing ratios
anticipated by BI`S is modest compared with other predictions.
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H. ALLAN HUNT AND TIMOTHYL. HUNT
259
Still, it is significant that the only turnaround from historical
trends anticipated by BES at the major occupational group level
due to changing staffing ratios is that for clerical workers. At least
through 1982, the decomposition analysis discussed earlier showed
that the staffing ratios for clerical jobs were rising, whereas the
BES forecast (base year 1982) and other forecasts expect that this
trend wiB be reversed in the years ahead.
Growth rates forecast by BES for 95 specific clerical occu-
pations range from a positive 76.1 percent to rn~nus 20 percent.
The range in the portion due to clerical staffing ratio changes is
from plus 38.4 percent to minus 55.6 percent. Clearly, though the
effect of BES's staffing ratio for clerical workers is negative overall,
BES expects many positive staffing effects for clerical workers as
well. The fastest-growing clerical jobs are expecter] to be com-
puter operators, claims adjusters, insurance checkers, peripheral
EDP equipment operators, telephone ad takers, claims clerks, and
credit authorizers. All are expected to have staffing ratio im-
pacts equivalent to increases in employment levels of 20 percent
or more. Besides the obvious technological impacts of comput-
ers on this list, it may be important to note that many of these
occupations require the worker to interact in some way with the
customer who is being served. That may provide a clue as to why
BES thinks secretaries will not decline in importance, or perhaps
why cashiers are the 10th fastest-growing occupation, with a 48.2
percent growth rate. Again a world of both high tech and high
touch is anticipated.
Roessner et al., Drennan, and Leontief and Duchin all con-
clude that office automation will have a much greater negative im-
pact on clerical jobs than the BES predicts, with Leontief-Duchin
and Roessner et al. predicting absolute declines in clerical em-
ployment within the next decade. Roessner et al. is particularly
pointed about his concerns regarding the BES methodology and
forecasts, while Drennan's projections appear to be nearer the BES
position. We find the studies of Leontief and Duchin and Roessner
et al. to be seriously flawed for serving policy needs; we think that
Leontie£Duchin and Roessner et al. are unduly pessimistic about
the outlook for clerical jobs.
There are a variety of reasons that support our contention.
First, although Leontief-Duchin use the BES forecast for demand
for goods and services, they predict revolutionary change in the
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260
RECENT TRENDS IN CLERICAL EMPLOYMENT
process technology by which those goods and services will be pro-
duced. The revolution in office automation is assumed to leave
the demand side of the marketplace unchanged. But that is not
the way a complex, dynamic market economy operates. If office
automation were adopted rapidly, it would change the relative
costs of production for those goods and services that are inten-
sive users of office automation. Those lower production costs will
generate lower prices. Since office work is concentrated in the ser-
vice sector, where demand growth has been above average, there
is every reason to think that both the lower prices and income
growth over time will generate additional demand. This scenario
is even more plausible when one realizes that the product markets
themselves are not static. So the new electronic office technolo-
gies may provide the impetus for the development of entirely new
goods and services. Industry interrelationships may change or
scale economies may be so significant that they fuel the devel-
opment of a mass market that heretofore was undreamed of. In
our opinion it is inappropriate to fix demand or the growth of
demand and then assume a revolutionary change on the supply
side of the market. Obviously, such a partial analysis can create
false impressions about the true impacts of office automation.
Second, it appears that none of these other studies account
for the tendency of output to become more information intensive
over time. Yet this is a process that has been occurring for some
time. The production recipes for many different goods and services
today require more information processing than yesterday. This is
not simply a function of the changing composition of demand but
relates to the ingredients for a standard unit of output. To the
extent that this trend continues in the future, it implies that office
automation may have less impact on clerical employment levels
than anticipated by some researchers.
Third, it should be mentioned that office automation is likely
to lower the marginal cost of some new types of work so much that
the required labor needed to produce that work rises by more than
the labor-saving impact of the new techniques themselves. The
common example is redrafts of documents with word processing.
The probability that this will occur may be enhanced by our
inability to measure output from offices in the first place. This
type of new work or rework is explicitly rejected by I`eontief-
Duchin, and perhaps implicitly by Roessner et al.
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H. ALLAN HUNT AND TIMOTHYL. HUNT
261
Fourth, these studies do not account for the fact that the
new technologies must be cost-effective and relatively reliable for
widespread application. The technologies may appear to be cost-
less, producing quantum leaps in productivity for the users. Yet
there are purchase costs, installation costs, and ongoing costs that
must be accounted for. The ongoing costs include system main-
tenance, software development, and training, among others. The
cost of unscheduled downtime may become increasingly significant
with more integrated systems.
Finally, Leontie£Duchin and Roessner et al. appear to us to
be truly overoptimistic technologically, both in terms of what office
automation equipment can do and in the speed of diffusion of that
equipment. Leontief-Duchin assume that word processors alone
wit] produce productivity gains for typists and secretaries of 500
percent. Yet this assumption is based upon a short, anonymous
trade journal article that is five times more optimistic than the
other articles which Leontief-Duchin reference. Roessner et al.,
on the other hand, emphasizes the potential for two breakthrough
technologies, voice input and artificial intelligence. He assumes
that innovations will occur in these technologies in the next few
years, that they will be successfully marketed, and that they will
dramatically reduce clerical employment in banking and insurance
during the 1990s.
Our major complaint with the technological assumptions of
both Leontie£Duchin and Roessner et al. is not that they may
be technically wrong, although there is ample reason to question
them, but that the level of uncertainty about the technical fore-
casts is so great that no one should seriously want to base policy
decisions on them. Artificial intelligence, for example, is a technol-
ogy that has been touted since the 1950s as a major breakthrough.
Perhaps we will always be overoptimistic about new technologies;
it stems to be part of the human condition. But that is no justi-
fication to shape public policy based on our dreams of the future.
Suffice it to say that we are unconvinced that technology will
evolve as far or as fast as Leontief-Duchin and Roessner et al.
predict. This is the kind of analysis that leads to the fear that
we will experience massive technological unemployment at some
point in the future. Various analysts have been predicting such an
event at least since the dawn of the industrial age. Somehow the
employment apocalypse is always just ahead, yet fortunately we
never quite reach it.
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262
RECENT TRENDS IN CLERICAL EMPLOYMENT
Because of the uncertainties about future demand and the
capabilities of future technologies, we would encourage a focus
on shorter-range occupational forecasting, exactly the opposite
approach being suggested by Leontief-Duchin and Roessner et al.
Roessner et al. argues that public policy makers need a longer
time period for planning. But, if technological change is occurring
faster today, then it is becoming even more impossible to develop
long-run employment forecasts. Surely it is folly to think that
we can peer 15 to 20 years into the future and see the detailed
occupational and industrial structure of this nation. In fact, we
think that the current :BES efforts, which produce about a Midyear
planning horizon, tax existing forecasting abilities to the limit.iS
What has this review shown for the future of clerical jobs?
First, we think the pessimists who claim that these jobs will either
stop growing absolutely or actually decline are wrong. The forces
of economic growth, the shift toward services, and the current
limitations of office automation technologies all argue strongly
against this scenario. However, it is clear that the historical rate
of growth of clerical jobs has slowed. Clericals did not benefit from
the last recession as they have in earlier recessions, nor are some
of the sectors that are important employers of clericals growing
as fast as they once were. Finally, office automation is likely to
at least contribute to the slowing of employment growth in these
occupations in the future. We think that the overall growth of
clerical jobs in the future will be average to slightly below average.
There is broad agreement among forecasts that clerical jobs will
not continue their rapid growth of the past few decades. The recent
slowdown in the growth of clerical jobs is very likely permanent.
We find no persuasive evidence, however, that there will be
a significant decline in the absolute number of clerical jobs. The
forecasts of declining clerical employment are based on overopti-
mistic expectations of technological improvements or exaggerated
productivity claims on behalf of existing technology. In our opin-
ion, current office technology offers significant improvements in
product quality and modest improvements in productivity. There
15 We also think BLS should be more open about their handling of
technological change in their forecasts. Like the other forecasters discussed
here, BLS should reveal the basis for its judgments concerning technological
change.
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H. ALLAN BUNT AND TIMO THY L. HUNT
263
is as yet no empirical evidence of an office productivity revolu-
tion that will displace significant numbers of clerical workers. The
growth of computer-related clerical positions will continue to be
strong. Office automation is not sufficiently advanced at this point
to slow the growth of these jobs.
Many factors will contribute to the continued, if slower, job
growth of clericals in the future. Chief among these is the simple
fact that clericals are so diffused in the national economy. More-
over, to the extent that clerical jobs are concentrated in particular
industries, it has been in industries growing faster than average.
Even if the growth rate of some of these slows, as it has in some
financial industries for example, others, such as services, are likely
to continue to grow at above average rates. Therefore, even al-
lowing for negative employment impacts from office automation,
the growth of this large, diverse, and diffused major occupational
group should not be much below the average growth for all occu-
pations for the next decade.
Many commentators believe that back-office clerical jobs will
disapppear. We do not think this is likely. An analogy to man-
ufacturing may be useful. Automation has not caused the total
elimination of production workers in manufacturing, but these jobs
have not been increasing in absolute terms for 40 years either. IJike
most of the forecasts discussed, we think the back-office jobs are
more threatened by automation than other positions. They share
with production workers a routinization of tasks, which tends to
support automation. This will not necessarily lead to their demise
but their growth will be well below average.
A good example of the limits of technological change is pro-
vided by bank tellers. The growth of this occupation has slowed in
recent years. The future growth prospects for bank tellers appear
to be directly tied to the public's acceptance of automatic teller
machines. But these machines today are used mostly for with-
drawals and cannot handle nonroutine transactions. They cannot
be thought of as a substitute for a fully staffed bank. Furthermore,
it is difficult to know if and when the public will be willing to break
the human link in making banking transactions.
Secretaries fall somewhere between the back-office jobs and
those positions that involve considerable customer interface.
Therefore, secretarial employment growth may slow but will not
stop. We think that the growth of secretaries will be average to
below average, but the absolute number of these jobs will definitely
OCR for page 264
264
RECENT TRENDS IN CLERICAL EMPLOYMENT
increase. Secretarial positions require a variety of skills and many
are generalist in nature; they are more difficult to eliminate with
automation. A variety of skills helps to ensure that the automa-
tion of any one of these skills leaves the job intact. It seems clear
that secretaries of the future will require an even greater variety
of skills and will utilize much more capital equipment.
Computer technology is still not ready to tackle the unstruc-
tured situations where humans excel. Clerical positions that in-
volve direct interface with customers or co-workers are likely to
experience at least average growth. The office of the future will
require both "high tech" and "high touch" occupations.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
office automation
