The Salary of a Data Entry Technician
- A high school diploma or GED is a minimum educational requirement to work as a data-entry tech. Increasingly, entry-level workers have associate's degrees in a business-related or office-skills discipline. A college degree may qualify candidates for more responsibilities, but the pay difference is small. A bachelor's degree, while not providing a large entry-level pay hike, could help you get your foot in the door and lead to supervisory or management positions.
- Depending on the job duties, many people are qualified for data-entry tech positions out of high school. Many high school students acquire the necessary skills through computer and business classes, non-business classes that require data entry and non-school computer activities.
- Experience often leads to more responsibilities and promotions. Moving from a data-entry tech I to a data entry tech II, for example, can bump your pay considerably. According to Salary.com, a data-entry clerk II's median salary is $30,195, with those in the upper range of the pay scale earning nearly $40,000. Additional responsibilities might include working with more text and literary jobs, including editing and proofreading duties. These functions are more related to a word-processor position and are accompanied by a pay increase. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, word processors averaged $31,400 in 2008 compared to a data-entry tech salary of $26,120. Supervisory duties also merit salary increases.
- Cities and metropolitan areas offer the best pay for data-entry techs. Boston, New York, Phoenix and Atlanta all pay averages of more than $55,000 a year. Even Anchorage and Juneau, in Alaska, pay nearly $19 and $18 an hour, respectively. However, less populated areas pay much less. The states of Utah, North Dakota and Delaware all pay, on average, less than $13 per hour. The Hagerstown-Martinsburg area, straddling the Maryland-West Virginia border, pays only about $10 an hour.
- Employment of data entry workers fell by 100,000 jobs, from about 525,000 in 2002 to 425,000 in 2008. The U.S. BLS projects a further drop, to about 400,000 in 2018. Job losses are due to improved technology, shifts away from data-entry techs to primary-source employees, and the increasing volumes of freelance and contract workers. Many of these contractors work remotely, depressing total income levels through elimination of benefits, overtime pay, bonuses and profit-sharing normally enjoyed by employees. Governments, the second-largest employers of data-entry techs after legal-service firms, also have drastically reduced workforce levels.