Data Entry at Home Jobs | Work From Home

Doing data entry at home jobs have become one of the more popular work at home opportunities in the last several years. There are legitimate jobs in existence, but they are not easy to come by, and usually involve working on site at the company before you are allowed to work at home.

With the emergence of the internet age and digital phone and fax services, data entry jobs have become legitimate work from home opportunities for people. However, many of these jobs that are commonly promoted are either illegitimate or inflate the ease and income.

The following is a description of what these jobs actually look like based on real information. After reading this, you can gauge the work from home opportunities that you see so you can make an informed decision.

The median income in May 2006 in word processing was at $29,430. The middle 50 percent made between $24,180 - $35,950. The lowest 10 percent of earners earned less than $20,200, while the highest 10 percent in this category earned more than $43,330.

The following income figures are median incomes in word processing from the industries with the most amount of jobs:

Local government $31,210

Elementary and secondary schools $29,960

Federal government $29,420

State government $28,520

Employment services $25,220

For data entry keyers for the same year was $24,690. The middle 50 percent made between $20,460 - $29,700. The lowest 10 percent of earners earned less than $17,050, while the highest 10 percent in this category earned more than $35,970.

The following income figures are median incomes who were data entry keyers from the industries with the most amount of these types of data entry jobs:

Management, scientific, and technical consulting services $25,860

Insurance carriers $25,760

Accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping, and payroll services $23,600

Data processing, hosting, and related services $22,680

Employment services $22,650

As you can see, these are not the relatively high incomes that you see for data entry jobs at home opportunities that are on the internet. Top earners are usually supervisors or in a highly technical field. So when you're looking at legitimate opportunities, make sure they are giving you reasonable income expectations.

According the to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, data entry jobs are due to decline. Employment is due to decline by 7% by 2016. Although the supply will decline over time, those with good technical expertise and specialized skills in office procedures and operations will still be in demand.

Some of the reasons involve the advent of new technologies that read and scan hard copy data and the increasing use of paperless offices and systems that don't have a hard copy to begin with in the first place.

Another main reason is the advent of personal computers where data and information is essentially keyed in, not by dedicated data entry personnel, but by people themselves. In addition, these jobs are being replaced by bar-code scanners that automatically read data and the information is transmitted instantly with manual interactions.

Additionally, these jobs are being consolidated into outsourcing companies like temp agencies, administrative staffing services, and companies specializing in mass data entry and data processing. Because of this outsourcing, we are finding that data entry jobs are now being driven overseas into countries like India and China with lower labor costs.

That being said, there is high turnover because of it's entry-level nature. Most people use these jobs as a stepping stone to other, better paying administrative jobs, leaving large amounts of openings each year. If you want to get legitimate data entry work at home jobs, you should try to get an office job first. If you're good enough, they might let you do it from home.

If you want to see the highest paying jobs in America, I have another hub that you can read.  It shows the top 10 jobs, and then it shows the top 10 non-medical jobs.  The latter is because most of the jobs in the real top 10 are medical professions.