Hiring executive assistants to strike work-life balance

EAs are not just for top bosses anymore. Many more people are shelling out for assistants to help balance their lives

- Callum Borchers

I could really use an executive assistant right now. Between work and all the kid stuff that comes with a new school year, it's hard to keep the calendar straight and the fridge stocked.

Trouble is, I'm not an executive. Some regular folks like me have decided not to let titles, or lack thereof, stop them from having EAs.

They've hired their own to help manage professional and personal affairs, spending anywhere from $10 a month for an artificial-intelligence assistant to several thousand dollars a month for a part-time person.

They see it as an investment that can pay for itself in increased productivity and earnings, and a testament to the habit of overscheduling ourselves and our children. They also say it's worth every penny.

This is happening while America's actual bosses are learning to check their own inboxes because having an assistant is a rarer perk than it used to be. The ranks of executive assistants plummeted from about 1.4 million in 2000 to 483,570 in 2023, according to federal data, leaving many managers without a coveted status symbol and timesaving aide.

Even though companies are cutting administrative roles and telling all but the most senior executives to fend for themselves, the rest of us can get a taste of the EA experience thanks to the next evolution of virtual assistants. We're all familiar with remote admins that cost-conscious businesses assign to support managers for, say, 20 hours a week. This new brand of EA is marketed directly to rank-and-file workers for as few as five hours a month.