Jobs / Office and administrative support / 43-5011.01
Freight Forwarders
Research rates, routings, or modes of transport for shipment of products. Maintain awareness of regulations affecting the international movement of cargo. Make arrangements for additional services, such as storage or inland transportation.
- US jobs
- 97,670 (SOC 43-5011 group, "Cargo and Freight Agents")
- Median wage
- $52,260 a year
- Job family
- Office and administrative support
Can agents do the work of freight forwarders?
We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Office and administrative support:
- Task levelStrongOn computer-use and office-task benchmarks, top agents pass most tasks: 90.2% on OSWorld-Verified (humans: 72.4%), 83.1% on SpreadsheetBench, and 63.3% on WorkArena L1 under the standard protocol. Limits: many top entries are self-submitted and not re-run by the maintainers, and on TheAgentCompany's multi-step workplace tasks the best agent resolves 42.9%.
- Project levelPartialOnly adjacent evidence. OpenAI reports that GPT-5.5's GDPval deliverables won or tied against professionals' work in 84.9% of comparisons, but GDPval tasks are one-shot and fully specified. No benchmark in our collection tests multi-day administrative work, such as running a calendar or a purchasing process.
Benchmarks for the job family
These cover work in office and administrative support, not always this occupation's tasks.
- 1846 EloClaude Opus 5.5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort, Default Fallback) · 23 Sep 2026Unrated
- OSWorld-Verifiedby HKU, Salesforce AI Research, Carnegie Mellon University and University of Waterloo90.2%Intelligence-Indeed Agent · 25 Jul 2026Saturated
- 42.9%TTE-MatrixAgent + DeepSeek-V3.2 · 10 Nov 2025Emerging
Typical tasks
From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.
- Negotiate shipping rates with freight carriers.
- Arrange for special transport of sensitive cargoes, such as livestock, food, or medical supplies.
- Arrange for applicable duties, taxes, or paperwork for customs clearance.
- Inform clients of factors such as shipping options, timelines, transfers, or regulations affecting shipments.
- Prepare shipping documentation, such as bills of lading, packing lists, dock receipts, or certificates of origin.
- Complete customs paperwork.
- Prepare invoices or cost quotations for freight transportation.
- Select shipment routes, based on nature of goods shipped, transit times, or security needs.
- Calculate weight, volume, or cost of goods to be moved.
- Arrange delivery or storage of goods at destinations.
- Arrange for transport, using a variety of modes, such as rail, short sea shipping, air, or roadways, to minimize carbon emissions or other environmental impacts.
- Determine efficient and cost-effective methods of moving goods from one location to another.
Other job titles for this occupation (36)
Air Export Agent · Air Export Coordinator · Export Coordinator · Freight Forwarder · GSA Coordinator (General Services Administration Coordinator) · Import Agent · Ocean Export Specialist · Relocation Coordinator · Route Specialist · Air Cargo Agent · Air Export Clerk · Air Freight Forwarder · Cargo Agent · Domestic Freight Forwarder · Export Clerk · Export Freight Clerk · Export Freight Forwarder · Export Freight Manager · Export Freight Planner · Export Freight Specialist · Freight Analyst · Freight Flow Manager · Freight Operations Supervisor · Freight Router · Freight Specialist · Import Export Clerk · Import Freight Forwarder · International Freight Forwarder · Ocean Export Clerk · Ocean Freight Customer Relations Specialist · Ocean Freight Forwarder · Ocean Freight Manager · Ocean Transportation Intermediary · Transportation Clerk · Transportation Technician (Transportation Tech) · Truck Driver