Furniture Industry Wages: Office and Administrative Support Occupations
October 11,
2019 by Laurie Northington in General 
Wages across the U.S. job market have been slow to grow post-recession, despite a healthy economy and the lowest unemployment rates in decades and the furniture industry is no exception. The steady increase of furniture and home furnishings sales over the last 10 years has been slower to hit employees working in the stores, but in recent years many occupations have finally started to see an upturn in wage growth.
Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ March 2019 release of “Occupational Employment Statistics,” this is the fourth factoid in a series of five factoids detailing employee wages in furniture stores and home furnishings stores across the variety of occupations.
Office and Administrative Support Occupations
By far, executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants are the highest paid among office and admin support jobs – earning a median hourly rate of $29.20 in furniture stores and $26.68 in home furnishings stores. The executive admin jobs also had the largest increases from 2012 to 2018 – jumping 32.5 percent in furniture stores and 29.8 percent in home furnishings stores.
Lowest paid among these positions are customer service reps, receptionists and information clerks, and stock clerks and order fillers – all earning less than a $14 median hourly wage.
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Occupational Employment Statistics,” released March 29, 2019