The Task Exposure Indexv2026.Q3
Comparison

Medical Secretaries and Administrative Assistants vs Payroll and Timekeeping Clerks

Medical Secretaries and Administrative Assistants carries the higher exposed share at 63.7% against 61.4%, a gap of 2.3 points. The difference is driven by both capability and friction: the two jobs differ in what a system can produce and in what stops it, by roughly the same amount. Release v2026.Q3.

OccupationExposedAssistedUntouchedCapabilityFrictionMedian payRankBand
Medical Secretaries and Administrative Assistants63.7%19.3%17.0%0.830.25$45,93022exposed
Payroll and Timekeeping Clerks61.4%26.2%12.4%0.880.31$58,26036exposed

What stands in the way, in each

Medical Secretaries and Administrative Assistants: the dominant friction is that it runs on knowledge of the organisation that a model cannot hold. Capability sits at 0.83 of 1 and friction at 0.25 of 1.

Payroll and Timekeeping Clerks: the dominant friction is that it runs on knowledge of the organisation that a model cannot hold. Capability sits at 0.88 of 1 and friction at 0.31 of 1.

Capability asks whether a generally available system can produce the work product at all. Friction asks what stops it finishing the job: physical work, being present, being accountable, unseen context, or the cost of checking the output. The rubric is here.

Read each in full

Exposure is not displacement. A higher score does not rank two jobs by how safe they are, and nothing here models adoption, employment or pay.