Purchasing and Inventory Clerks
Job description
These individuals process transactions and verify equipment and inventory. They work in:
- Businesses
- Plants
- Government agencies
Environment
- Controlled ambient temperature
Main tasks
Purchasing Clerks
- Check the accuracy of the requests and quantity in stock.
- Calculate the cost of orders, request payment, or forward invoices to the relevant departments.
- Find supply sources, get prices, and fill out purchase orders.
- Establish delivery schedules with suppliers.
- Solve problems (missing items, forgotten deliveries, etc.).
- Prepare and maintain purchase files, reports, and price lists.
Inventory Control Clerk
- Maintain, monitor, adjust, and compile inventory reports.
- Prepare orders to replenish available inventory.
- Ensure turnover of items, list expired items and dispose of them.
- Enter the necessary data for the preparation of the production schedule.
- Reconcile computer-calculated inventories with the manual count of inventory items.
Advancement and mobility
- The duties of purchasing and inventory clerks may overlap in some establishments.
- Additional experience or training may lead to supervisory or senior positions.
Hourly wage
The hourly wage is calculated by averaging wages from 2022 to 2024.- Minimum
- $16.25
- Median
- $24.04
- Maximum
- $36.92
Job prospects for 2024-2028
Job prospects for 2024-2028
Job prospects
All of Québec
All of Québec
Total jobs for 2023
All of Québec
All of Québec
Gender distribution
All of Québec
- 47.3% Female
- 52.7% Male
- 47.3% Female
- 52.7% Male
Job types
All of Québec
- Full time
- Part time
- Full time
- Part time
Yearly wage on 2020
All of Québec
All of Québec
Other characteristics
All of Québec
- None
All of Québec
- None
Sectors of activity
All of Québec
-
NAICS 44, 4530% of jobs
-
NAICS 4116% of jobs
-
NAICS 55, 567% of jobs
-
NAICS 916% of jobs
-
NAICS 311, 3124% of jobs
-
Others37% of jobs
All of Québec
-
NAICS 44, 4530% of jobs
-
NAICS 4116% of jobs
-
NAICS 55, 567% of jobs
-
NAICS 916% of jobs
-
NAICS 311, 3124% of jobs
-
Others37% of jobs
Training and requirements
Formation
Most training programs are offered in French only.
Secondary
DVS in accounting
Placement rate: 72%
10.3% of graduates pursue further studies
DVS in comptabilité
Placement rate: 80.7%
8.8% of graduates pursue further studies
College
DCS in accounting and Management Technology
Placement rate: 45.4%
52.5% of graduates pursue further studies
Sometimes required
- Courses in purchasing management may be required.
- Courses in production and inventory management may be required.
- Basic computer knowledge is usually required.
- Forklift Operator competency card may be required or an asset.
Main skills and characteristics
Skills
- Data collection
- Reading comprehension
- Oral expression
- Information processing
- Active listening
- Written expression
- Critical thought
- Solving complex problems
- Result evaluation
- Judgment and decision-making
- Social perception
- Active learning
- Time management
- Coordination
- Service oriented
Abilities
- Written comprehension
- Oral comprehension
- Verbal skills
- Written expression
- Information organization
- Near vision
- Speech clarity
- Deductive reasoning
- Inductive reasoning
- Awareness of issues
- Speech recognition
- Classification
- Mathematical reasoning
Knowledge and attributes
- Diplomacy
- Knowledge of administration and management
- Autonomy
- Sense of responsibility
- Spoken and written bilingualism (French and English)
- Knowledge of customer and personalized services
- Rigour
- Sense of initiative
- Attention to detail
- Knowledge of office work
Interests
- Draft, communicate, and inform
- Work with numbers
- Collect, verify, sort, and classify data or information
Personality profiles (RIASEC)
- Conventional
- People with this profile prefer specific, well-defined tasks. They like to respect the order of things and follow established rules.
- Investigative
- People with this profile prefer relying on theoretical knowledge before acting. They like observation, analysis and problem solving.
- Enterprising
- People with this profile prefer having responsibilities, influencing others and responding to challenges.
Official name of the NOC 14403
Purchasing and inventory control workers
Job titles
- Purchasing clerk
- Inventory clerk
- Inventory analyst
- Purchase order clerk
- Purchasing clerk assistant
- Ship supply clerk
- Equipment inventory clerk
- Permanent inventory clerk
- Purchasing control clerk
- Liquor controller - inventory
- Food controller - inventory
- Invoice control clerk
- Inventory control clerk
- Procurement clerk
- Food and beverage control clerk - inventory
- Printing plates order clerk
- Inventory planner
- Supply technician - canadian armed forces
- Inventory auditor
- Invoice and purchase order checker
Skill type
Business, finance and administration
Last update: January 29, 2026