Inventory Clerk job description
280 verified openings in Inventory & Logistics
A cycle count that disagrees with the system is where an inventory clerk's day starts. The work is counting and reconciling: counts against the record, chasing variances, watching reorder points, investigating shrink, and keeping the item master honest. BLS reports the title inside shipping, receiving, and inventory clerks, 827,700 strong in 2025, and puts the May 2025 median at $45,260, the one line the shipping and receiving clerk page here works from as well. Across the wider material recording clerk group, May 2025 pay ran from $35,620 at the tenth percentile to $75,160 at the ninetieth, a spread produced mostly by the planning and expediting jobs at its top.
Core Duties and Responsibilities
The task record is written around the shipment: verifying contents against manifests, invoices, and orders, requisitioning and storing shipping materials to keep stock on hand, recording weight, charges, damages, and discrepancies for accounting, and computing available space, storage, or demurrage charges from a price list or a computer. On the inventory side of the desk that turns into the count, the variance, and the correction, plus the call to a supplier or a plant when the numbers will not close.
Common Skills and Technologies
Deciding whether a discrepancy is a miscount, a mispick, or a loss is most of the job, so Critical Thinking, Monitoring, and Time Management sit near the top of the skill list, with Complex Problem Solving and Judgment and Decision Making behind them. An inventory management system and warehouse management software are both flagged in demand, though Microsoft Excel does more of the daily work than either. SAP, database query, and compliance software round out the record.
Education, Training, and Career Path
High school is the usual entry credential, Job Zone Two on O*NET's ladder, though nearly a quarter of the clerks surveyed hold a two-year or four-year degree. Manufacturing employs 28 percent of material recording clerks and transportation and warehousing 14 percent. Production, planning, and expediting clerk is the related occupation O*NET lists next door, and it sits at the top of that wider pay spread.
Sources: O*NET 30.0, 43-5071.00 Shipping, Receiving, and Inventory Clerks, https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/43-5071.00. BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, 43-5071, https://www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm. BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, Material Recording Clerks, https://www.bls.gov/ooh/office-and-administrative-support/material-recording-clerks.htm.