Chicago owners have one scheduling advantage over both coasts: Central time is an hour behind New York and two ahead of Los Angeles, so a normal working day overlaps most of the country. The trade-off is that a Chicago principal's calendar often spans all three zones in one afternoon. Below, Ryz Labs (November 2026) sets out what Chicago executive assistants earn according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the industries that lean on them, a checklist for hiring one, and what a placed EA costs by comparison.
Chicago is home to major derivatives exchanges and a large community of trading firms, asset managers and insurers. Their principals need calendars built around market sessions and clients in other zones, and assistants who handle sensitive information with care.
The Loop is dense with professional-services firms. Partners and practice leaders use EAs to defend billable time, coordinate travel to clients, and keep proposal and engagement deadlines visible.
With its rail, trucking and air-freight connections, the Chicago region runs a lot of physical supply chains. Owners of distribution or manufacturing businesses often need an assistant who coordinates suppliers, carriers and plant visits as much as meetings.
Hospital systems, medical groups and health-tech companies generate heavy scheduling and committee work for their executives.
Figures below are from the federal OEWS wage survey for May 2025, occupation code 43-6011, Chicago-Naperville-Elgin area code 16980.
Chicago's median is close to the national $76,590, and the concentration figure below 1.0 means EA jobs make up a slightly smaller share of local employment than nationwide. Practically, that can mean a thinner pool of very senior EAs when you're recruiting locally. Factor in benefits at roughly 30% of compensation, the BLS private-industry average, and a median Chicago EA costs about $111,100 a year, or $9,260 a month. The national EA cost breakdown shows the same method.
For a Chicago owner, a US business-hours assistant overlaps almost the whole of your day. An 8 AM to 5 PM Central schedule catches New York's 9 AM start and stays online until 3 PM in Los Angeles. That makes Chicago a good place to rely on a remote assistant for live work: confirming calls, answering vendors, handling same-day requests.
Where it gets harder is with assistants whose working day sits far from yours. A Chicago 9 to 5 is 11 PM to 7 AM in the Philippines in November, for example. If you're weighing overseas options, our guide on where Athena assistants are located lays out the hours.
Chicago executives fly a lot, and O'Hare and Midway connect them to almost everywhere in one hop. That convenience comes with winter: snow and storms reshuffle flights and ground travel several times a season. An assistant who watches your itinerary, rebooks before the queue forms and reschedules the meetings on the other end is one of the most tangible returns on an EA in this city. If you travel weekly, put "travel recovery" at the top of the job description.
An in-house hire gives you someone in your office who can manage people and money under your policies, at roughly $111,100 a year loaded at the Chicago median. Hourly US services such as Boldly ($2,600 for 40 hours a month) and Time etc ($1,480 for 40 hours) suit light loads. Dedicated services give you a full working week: Athena lists $3,000 a month with a 12-month commitment, and Ryz Labs places a dedicated EA at $3,000 a month, month to month. Our best executive assistant services page ranks the field.
Ryz places executive and virtual assistants who work on your team, keep US business hours and speak fluent English. Recruiters screen every one. We start with a single conversation and follow it with a written plan, a price, and the names of the specific people we'd suggest. An executive assistant is $3,000 per month; a virtual assistant is $2,000 per month; there's no commitment past the month in either case. When you give the go, most people can typically start in under two weeks, while some roles take three to six weeks. Ryz covers any US time zone: your assistant keeps your Central time business day.
Chicago businesses in logistics, manufacturing and services often find the next bottleneck is software: a customer portal, a scheduling tool, an integration between systems. We place developers and product and project managers too, so they can join the same team as your EA. Fortune 500 engineering teams already rely on Ryz, which opened in 2021. Get in touch.
The BLS May 2025 mean for the Chicago metro is $79,710 a year and the median is $77,770, or $37.39 an hour.
About 10,620 executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants in May 2025, per BLS OEWS.
Most Chicago owners want 8 AM to 5 PM Central or their own working day. That window overlaps New York's morning and most of the West Coast's day.
Yes, especially on Central time, where a US business-hours schedule covers almost your whole day. Confirm the hours in writing.
Chicago clients pay our standard rates: $3,000 monthly for a dedicated EA, $2,000 monthly for a VA, cancellable month to month.
Chicago numbers were requested from the BLS public data API on November 14, 2026; the OEWS series IDs start OEUM0016980000000436011 and end in 01 (jobs), 04 (mean), 08 and 13 (median), 12 and 14 (quartiles) and 17 (concentration). Service prices are as listed that day.
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