Order Picker job description

A pick list, a screen, or a voice headset sets the pace: an order picker pulls cases to a stop sequence and builds a pallet, either on foot behind an electric pallet jack or riding a platform up to the pick face. BLS records the picking under stockers and order fillers, 2,804,300 jobs in 2025, with a May 2025 median of $37,330 and a tenth-to-ninetieth range of $30,110 to $49,260. Stockers are counted on that same row, so the stocker page here carries the same median. Driving the equipment falls under industrial truck and tractor operators instead, where the May 2025 median reached $46,420, and that gap is what a certification closes.

Core Duties and Responsibilities

Completing order receipts tops the task list, then issuing materials, parts, and supplies against incoming requisitions, then keeping records of what went out. Reading the order for catalog numbers, sizes, colors, and quantities comes before any of it. Obtaining merchandise from bins and shelves, operating equipment such as forklifts, marking stock with tags, and storing what is left over in an orderly, reachable way fill out the list.

Common Skills and Technologies

Buildings that pick by voice put listening ahead of everything else, and voice recognition software is in O*NET's technology record for the occupation for exactly that reason. Reading the order and monitoring your own count come next. The named software is otherwise ordinary, SAP and Microsoft Office, over inventory and supply chain tools a picker rarely touches directly.

Education, Training, and Career Path

Job Zone Two, though the hiring answers carry more college than most warehouse floor jobs: 57 percent high school or equivalent, 30 percent some college, and 8 percent less than high school, with the last few percent naming a certificate or a two-year degree. The pick itself is learned on the floor inside a few weeks. A stand-up picker counts as a powered industrial truck, which brings OSHA 1910.178 into it, with training and a re-evaluation every three years owed by the employer.

Sources: O*NET 30.0, 53-7065.00 Stockers and Order Fillers, https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/53-7065.00. BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, 53-7065, https://www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm. BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, Hand Laborers and Material Movers, https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/hand-laborers-and-material-movers.htm.