General Information: (312) 353-1880 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Contact: Paul LaPorte Monday, April 10, 2006 Fax-on-Demand Document No. 9362 http://www.bls.gov/ro5 OCCUPATIONAL EMPLOYMENT AND WAGES, NOVEMBER 2004 ROCKFORD, ILLINOIS Workers in the Rockford metropolitan area 1/ had an average (mean) hourly wage of $16.95 in November 2004, compared with the nationwide average of $18.00, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor. Regional Commissioner Jay A. Mousa noted that 3 of the 22 major occupational groups in Rockford (construction and extraction; installation, maintenance, and repair; and protective service) recorded wages that were significantly higher than their respective national averages and 11 others had wages that were significantly below. (See table A. Also, see Technical Note, Estimation Methodology section, for a listing of statistically significant comparisons.) With more than 168,000 employed in the Rockford area, production occupations accounted for 16.8 percent of the workforce, appreciably above the national share of 7.9 percent. Given Rockford's substantial manufacturing base, it is not surprising that the concentration of production workers locally was more than double the nationwide percentage. Two other occupational groups also had above- average concentrations in the local workforce - healthcare practitioners and technical, and transportation and material moving. On the other hand, 12 of the 22 major occupational groups had less of a presence in Rockford than they did nationwide. These statistics are from the Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) survey, a federal-state cooperative program between BLS and State Workforce Agencies. The OES survey provides estimates of employment and hourly and annual wages for wage and salary workers in 22 major occupational groups and up to 801 detailed occupations for the nation, the states and 334 metropolitan areas. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1/ The Rockford metropolitan area consists of Boone, Ogle and Winnebago Counties in Illinois. Table A. Employment and wages data by occupation for United States and Rockford metropolitan area, November 2004 ------------------------------------------------------------------- | Employment share | Average |(percent of total)| hourly wage Major occupational group |------------------|------------------ |United | | United | |States | Rockford | States | Rockford ------------------------------------------------------------------- Management | 4.7 4.4 | 41.87 37.74 Business and financial | 4.1 3.6 | 27.46 24.82 operations | | Computer and mathematical | 2.3 0.9 | 31.91 25.77 Architecture and engineering | 1.8 1.9 | 30.32 26.04 Life, physical, and social | .9 0.6 | 27.67 25.53 services | | Community and social services| 1.3 1.4 | 17.81 17.53 Legal | .8 0.4 | 39.03 36.01 Education, training, and | 6.2 6.1 | 20.58 21.47 library | | Arts, design, entertainment | 1.3 1.0 | 21.07 17.90 sports, and media | | Healthcare practitioners | 5.0 5.6 | 28.03 25.11 and technical | | Healthcare support | 2.6 2.4 | 11.30 10.96 Protective services | 2.4 1.5 | 16.94 18.86 Food preparation and serving | 8.2 6.9 | 8.47 8.01 related | | Building, grounds cleaning | 3.3 2.6 | 10.42 9.91 and maintenance | | Personal care and service | 2.4 1.6 | 10.62 10.47 Sales and related | 10.6 10.2 | 15.52 14.20 Office and administrative | 17.5 15.7 | 14.13 13.24 support | | Farming, fishing, and | .3 -- | 9.94 10.69 forestry | | Construction and extraction | 4.9 4.1 | 18.21 23.24 Installation, maintenance | 4.1 4.1 | 18.09 19.15 and repair | | Production | 7.9 16.8 | 14.18 14.13 Transportation and material | 7.4 8.3 | 13.58 13.24 moving | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Dashes indicate no data available. Though the hourly wage for workers in management was below the national average, the occupational group was still among the highest paid in the Rockford area earning $37.74 per hour compared with $41.87 for their national counterparts. Within the management group, chief executives ($69.70), construction managers ($52.47), and general and operations managers ($42.90), were among the better paid in Rockford. Among the lowest paid in the managerial group were those in social and community service ($20.25), preschool and child care center/education administration ($17.54), and food service ($15.43). (See end of news release for a link to detailed data tables.)
Architecture and engineering workers ($26.04) were another well- paid occupational group in the Rockford area, though wages, again, fell below the U.S. average ($30.32). At the higher end of the wage scale in this occupational group were electrical engineers averaging $32.60 and mechanical engineers earning $29.43. Among the lower paid were surveying and mapping technicians averaging $18.01 and drafters, all other, averaging $16.38. The architectural and engineering profession accounted for about 2 percent of the workforce in both Rockford and the nation. The healthcare practitioners and technical occupational group was also among the better paid in Rockford averaging $25.11. Though this group had an above-average presence in the local area with a 5.6- percent employment share, its wage fell below the $28.03 national average. Wages in Rockford varied widely in this group with family and general practitioners earning $78.49 and pharmacy technicians, $11.05. As noted, the construction and extraction occupational group was one of three in the Rockford area with an appreciably higher-than- average wage. Locally, this group averaged $23.24 per hour, nationally, $18.21. The better paid within the construction and extraction occupational group in Rockford included first-line supervisors/managers of construction and excavation workers ($30.59), plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters ($28.26), and brickmasons and blockmasons ($27.27). The employment share for construction and extraction workers in Rockford, 4.1 percent, was below that for the nation, 4.9 percent At the low end of the wage scale in Rockford were food preparation and serving related workers averaging $8.01 per hour. Workers in this occupational group comprised almost 7 percent of Rockford's workforce. This group was also among the lowest paid nationwide. One of the largest occupational groups in Rockford was production, with a total of 28,360 workers. As noted earlier, production had a larger-than-average presence in the Rockford area as evidenced by a 16.8-percent employment share, more than twice the U.S. average. The hourly wage of production workers in Rockford ($14.13) was on a par with the national average ($14.18). Within this occupational group, several jobs in Rockford had wages greater than $20.00 per hour including first-line supervisors/managers of production and operating workers; numerical tool and process control programmers; and tool and die makers. Team assemblers, the largest group within production with 5,940 workers, averaged $12.24 an hour. Transportation and material moving workers made up another of the larger occupational groups in the Rockford area; in fact, they had a higher-than-average presence relative to their representation in the U.S. workforce (8.3 percent locally versus 7.4 percent nationally). Workers in this occupational group averaged $13.24 per hour. Among the better paid in this group locally were first-line supervisors/managers of transportation and material-moving machine and vehicle operators earning $22.27 and first-line supervisors/managers of helpers, laborers, and material movers (hand) earning $21.17, while driver/sales workers ($9.70) and hand packers and packagers ($9.26) were among the lowest paid. Nationally, office and administrative support was the largest occupational group comprising 17.5 percent of the workforce. In Rockford, this group accounted for 15.7 percent of the jobs in the metropolitan area. The hourly wage for workers in office and administrative jobs in the Rockford area was lower than the national average ($13.24 versus $14.13). Postal service workers were among the better paid in the Rockford area with clerks averaging $22.99, mail carriers, $21.28, and mail sorters, processing, and processing machine operators, $20.80. Towards the bottom of the scale were wages for two of the larger detailed occupational groups -- office clerks, general ($11.09) and stock clerks and order filers ($10.71). Technical Note The Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) survey is a semiannual mail survey measuring occupational employment and wage rates for wage and salary workers in nonfarm establishments in the United States. Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands also are surveyed, but their data are not included in this release. Data are collected from panels of about 200,000 establishments each in May and November. Estimates from the program use data collected over a 3- year (six-panel) period and are based on a total sample of about 1.2 million establishments. The nationwide response rate for the November 2004 survey was 78.7 percent for establishments, covering 73.0 percent of weighted employment. The survey included establishments sampled in the November 2004, May 2004, November 2003, May 2003, and November 2002 semiannual panels and about half of the 2001 annual panel. The sample in the Rockford metropolitan area included 2,094 establishments with a response rate of 76 percent. The occupational coding system The OES survey uses the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) occupational classification system, the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system. The SOC system is the first OMB-required occupational classification system for federal agencies. The OES survey categorizes workers in 1 of 801 detailed occupations. Together, these detailed occupations comprise 23 major occupational groups, one of which--military specific occupations--is not included in the OES survey. The major groups are as follows: Management occupations Business and financial operations occupations Computer and mathematical science occupations Architecture and engineering occupations Life, physical, and social science occupations Community and social services occupations Legal occupations Education, training, and library occupations Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations Healthcare practitioner and technical occupations Healthcare support occupations Protective service occupations Food preparation and serving related occupations Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations Personal care and service occupations Sales and related occupations Office and administrative support occupations Farming, fishing, and forestry occupations Construction and extraction occupations Installation, maintenance, and repair occupations Production occupations Transportation and material moving occupations Military specific occupations (not surveyed in OES) For more information about the SOC system, please see the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Web site at http://www.bls.gov/soc. The industry coding system The OES survey uses the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). For more information about NAICS, see the BLS Web site at http://www.bls.gov/bls/naics.htm. The OES survey includes establishments in NAICS sectors 11 (logging and agricultural support activities only), 21, 22, 23, 31- 33, 42, 44-45, 48-49, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 61, 62, 71, 72, 81 (except private households), state government, and local government. Data for the United States Postal Service and the federal government are universe counts obtained from the Postal Service and the Office of Personnel Management, respectively. An establishment is defined as an economic unit that processes goods or provides services, such as a factory, mine, or store. The establishment is generally at a single physical location and is engaged primarily in one type of economic activity. The OES survey covers all full- and part-time wage and salary workers in nonfarm industries. The survey does not include the self- employed owners and partners in unincorporated firms, household workers, or unpaid family workers. Survey sample BLS funds the survey and provides the procedures and technical support, while the State Workforce Agencies (SWAs) collect most of the data. BLS produces cross-industry and industry-specific estimates for the nation, states, and metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs). Industry estimates are produced for the NAICS sector, 3- digit, 4-digit, and selected 5-digit industry levels. BLS releases all cross-industry and national estimates, and the SWAs release industry estimates at the state and MSA levels. State Unemployment Insurance (UI) files provide the universe from which the OES survey draws its sample. The employment benchmarks are obtained from reports submitted by employers to the UI program. Supplemental sources are used for rail transportation (NAICS 4821) and Guam because they do not report to the UI program. The OES survey sample is stratified by area, industry, and size class. Size classes are defined based on number of employees in the establishment as follows: Size class Number of employees ------------------------------------- 1 1 to 4 2 5 to 9 3 10 to 19 4 20 to 49 5 50 to 99 6 100 to 249 7 250 and above ------------------------------------- A census of federal government and the post office is taken every panel. A census of state government and Hawaii's local government is taken every November panel. Units in rail transportation (NAICS 482) and hospitals (NAICS 622) are sampled with certainty across a 3-year period. Establishments with 250 or more employees also are sampled with virtual certainty across a 3-year period; on average, one-sixth of these are sampled in each panel. Concepts Occupational employment is the estimate of total wage and salary employment in an occupation across the industries surveyed. The OES survey defines employment as the number of workers who can be classified as full- or part-time employees, including workers on paid vacations or other types of paid leave; workers on unpaid short-term absences; salaried officers, executives, and staff members of incorporated firms; employees temporarily assigned to other units; and employees for whom the reporting unit is their permanent duty station regardless of whether that unit prepares their paycheck. The OES survey forms sent to larger establishments contain between 50 and 225 SOC occupations selected on the basis of the sampled establishment's industry classification. To reduce paperwork and respondent burden, no survey form contains every SOC occupation. Thus, data for specific occupations are collected primarily from establishments in industries that are the predominant employers of workers in those occupations. Each survey form is structured, however, to allow a respondent to provide detailed occupational information for each worker at the establishment; that is, unlisted occupations can be added to the survey form. In most cases, employers with 9 or fewer workers are sent a form with no occupations listed, and are instructed to fill in the occupations for their workers. Wages for the OES survey are straight-time, gross pay, exclusive of premium pay. Base rate, cost-of-living allowances, guaranteed pay, hazardous-duty pay, incentive pay including commissions and production bonuses, tips, and on-call pay are included. Excluded are back pay, jury duty pay, overtime pay, severance pay, shift differentials, non-production bonuses, employer cost for supplementary benefits, and tuition reimbursements. The OES survey collects wage data in 12 intervals. Employers report the number of employees in an occupation for each wage range. The wage intervals used for the November 2004 survey are as follows: -------------------------------------------------------- | Wages Interval |----------------------------------------- | Hourly | Annual -------------------------------------------------------- Range A | Under $6.75 | Under $14,040 Range B | $6.75 to $8.49 | $14,040 to $17,679 Range C | $8.50 to $10.74 | $17,680 to $22,359 Range D | $10.75 to $13.49 | $22,360 to $28,079 Range E | $13.50 to $16.99 | $28,080 to $35,359 Range F | $17.00 to $21.49 | $35,360 to $44,719 Range G | $21.50 to $27.24 | $44,720 to $56,679 Range H | $27.25 to $34.49 | $56,680 to $71,759 Range I | $34.50 to $43.74 | $71,760 to $90,999 Range J | $43.75 to $55.49 | $91,000 to $115,439 Range K | $55.50 to $69.99 | $115,440 to $145,599 Range L | $70.00 and over | $145,600 and over --------------------------------------------------------- Mean hourly wage. The mean hourly wage rate for an occupation is the total wages that all workers in the occupation earn in an hour divided by the total employment of the occupation. To calculate the mean hourly wage of each occupation, total weighted hourly wages are summed across all intervals and divided by the occupation's weighted survey employment. The mean wage for each interval is based on occupational wage data collected by the BLS Office of Compensation and Working Conditions for the National Compensation Survey (NCS). The mean hourly wage value for the highest wage interval, $70.00 and over, was computed separately for each panel or annual sample (November 2004, May 2004, November 2003, May 2003, November 2002, and 2001). The average of these mean wage rates was used for all of the $70.00 and over data in the November 2004 survey. The wage rates for this interval do not go through any wage updating procedures. Percentile wage. The p-th percentile wage range for an occupation is the wage where p percent of all workers earn that amount or less and where (100-p) percent of all workers earn that amount or more. This statistic is calculated by uniformly distributing the workers inside each wage interval, ranking the workers from lowest paid to highest paid, and calculating the product of the total employment for the occupation and the desired percentile to determine the worker that earns the p-th percentile wage rate. Annual wage. Many employees are paid at an hourly rate by their employers and may work more than or less than 40 hours per week. Annual wage estimates for most occupations in this release are calculated by multiplying the mean hourly wage by a "year-round, full- time" figure of 2,080 hours (52 weeks by 40 hours). Thus, annual wage estimates may not represent the actual annual pay received by the employee if they work more or less than 2,080 hours per year. Some workers typically work less than full time, year round. For these occupations, the OES survey collects and reports either the annual salary or the hourly wage rate, depending on how the occupation is typically paid, but not both. For example, teachers, flight attendants, and pilots may be paid an annual salary, but do not work the usual 2,080 hours per year. In this case, an annual salary is reported. Other workers, such as entertainment workers are paid hourly rates, but generally do not work full time, year round. For these workers, only an hourly wage is reported. Hourly versus annual wage reporting. For each occupation, respondents are asked to report the number of employees paid within specific wage intervals. The intervals are defined both as hourly rates and the corresponding annual rates, where the annual rate for an occupation is calculated by multiplying the hourly wage rate by a typical work year of 2,080 hours. The responding establishment can reference either the hourly or the annual rate for full-time workers, but they are instructed to report the hourly rate for part-time workers. Estimation methodology Each OES panel includes approximately 200,000 establishments. While estimates can be made with data from one panel or one year, the OES survey is designed to produce estimates using six panels (3 years) of data. The full six-panel sample of 1.2 million establishments allows the production of estimates at detailed levels of geography, industry, and occupation. Combining six panels of data is also necessary to obtain the full complement of certainty establishments. (Note: The first semiannual panel was in November 2002. Prior to that, about 400,000 establishments were surveyed annually. Each earlier sample is a two-panel equivalent.) Wage updating. Significant reductions in sampling errors are obtained by combining six panels of data, particularly for small geographic areas and occupations. Wages for the current panel need no adjustment. However, wages in the five previous panels need to be updated to the current panel's reference period. The OES program uses the BLS Employment Cost Index (ECI) to adjust survey data from prior panels before combining them with the current panel's data. The wage updating procedure adjusts each detailed occupation's wage rate, as measured in the earlier panel, according to the average movement of its broader occupational division. The procedure assumes that there are no major differences by geography, industry, or detailed occupation within the occupational division. Imputation. Over 20 percent of establishments do not respond for a given panel. A "nearest neighbor" hot deck imputation procedure is used to impute occupational employment totals. A variant of mean imputation is then used to impute a wage distribution for each occupation. The variant of mean imputation for wage distributions is also applied to establishments that provide reports with occupational totals but partial or missing wage data. Weighting and benchmarking. The sample establishments in each panel are weighted to represent all establishments that were part of the in-scope frame from which the panel was selected. Based on the sampled establishments, weights are adjusted when six panels are combined. Weights are adjusted by benchmarking employment totals from the OES survey to employment figures derived from the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. November 2004 OES survey estimates. The November 2004 OES survey estimates are based on all data collected from establishments in the November 2004, May 2004, November 2003, May 2003, November 2002, and about half of the 2001 annual sample. During estimates processing, OES employment data were benchmarked to the average employment for November 2004 and May 2004 from the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. Reliability of the estimates. Estimates calculated from a sample survey are subject to two types of error: sampling and nonsampling. Sampling error occurs when estimates are calculated from a subset (i.e., sample) of the population instead of the full population. When a sample of the population is surveyed, there is a chance that the sample estimate of the characteristic of interest may differ from the population value of that characteristic. Differences between the sample estimate and the population value will vary depending on the sample selected. This variability can be estimated by calculating the standard error (SE) of the sample estimate. If we were to repeat the sampling and estimation process countless times using the same survey design, approximately 90 percent of the intervals created by adding and subtracting 1.645 SEs from the sample estimate would include the population value. These intervals are called 90-percent confidence intervals. The OES survey, however, usually uses the relative standard error (RSE) of a sample estimate instead of its SE to measure sampling error. RSE is defined as the SE of a sample estimate divided by the sample estimate itself. This statistic provides the user with a measure of the relative precision of the sample estimate. RSEs are calculated for both occupational employment and mean wage rate estimates. Occupational employment RSEs are calculated using a subsample, random group replication technique called the jackknife. Mean wage rate RSEs are calculated using a variance components model that accounts for both the observed and unobserved components of the wage data. The variances of the unobserved components are estimated using wage data from the BLS National Compensation Survey. In general, estimates based on many establishments have lower RSEs than estimates based on few establishments. If the distributional assumptions of the models are violated, the resulting confidence intervals may not reflect the prescribed level of confidence. Nonsampling error occurs for a variety of reasons, none of which are directly connected to sampling. Examples of nonsampling error include: nonresponse, data incorrectly reported by the respondent, mistakes made in entering collected data into the database, and mistakes made in editing and processing the collected data. Results of significance testing. The OES significance tests in this release compare wage and employment data for the 22 major occupational groups in the Rockford metropolitan area to their respective national averages. Those occupations with wages or employment shares above or below the national wage or share after testing for significance at the 90 percent confidence interval are identified in the table below. NOTE: A value that is statistically different from another does not necessarily mean that the difference has economic or practical significance. Statistical significance is concerned with our ability to make confident statements about a universe based on a sample. It is entirely possible that a large difference between two values is not significantly different statistically, while a small difference is, since both the size and heterogeneity of the sample effect the relative error of the data being tested. Employment and wage data by occupation for the U.S. and Rockford metropolitan area, November 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Employment share | | (percent of total) | Average hourly wage Major occupational group |----------------------------------------------------------------- | Significant | Significant | U.S. Rockford difference 1/ | U.S. Rockford difference 1/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Management | 4.7 4.4 Yes | $41.87 $37.74 Yes Business and financial operations | 4.1 3.6 Yes | 27.46 24.82 Yes Computer and mathematical | 2.3 .9 Yes | 31.91 25.77 Yes Architecture and engineering | 1.8 1.9 No | 30.32 26.04 Yes Life, physical, and social science | .9 .6 Yes | 27.67 25.53 Yes Community and social services | 1.3 1.4 No | 17.81 17.53 No Legal | .8 .4 Yes | 39.03 36.01 No Education, training, and library | 6.2 6.1 No | 20.58 21.47 No Arts, design, entertainment, sports, | | and media | 1.3 1.0 Yes | 21.07 17.90 Yes Healthcare practitioners and technical| 5.0 5.6 Yes | 28.03 25.11 Yes Healthcare support | 2.6 2.4 No | 11.30 10.96 No Protective service | 2.4 1.5 Yes | 16.94 18.86 Yes Food preparation and serving relate | 8.2 6.9 Yes | 8.47 8.01 Yes Building and grounds cleaning | | and maintenance | 3.3 2.6 Yes | 10.42 9.91 Yes Personal care and service | 2.4 1.6 Yes | 10.62 10.47 No Sales and related | 10.6 10.2 No | 15.52 14.20 Yes Office and administrative support | 17.5 15.7 Yes | 14.13 13.24 Yes Farming, fishing, and forestry | .3 -- -- | 9.94 10.69 No Construction and extraction | 4.9 4.1 Yes | 18.21 23.24 Yes Installation, maintenance, and repair | 4.1 4.1 No | 18.09 19.15 Yes Production | 7.9 16.8 Yes | 14.18 14.13 No Transportation and material moving | 7.4 8.3 Yes | 13.58 13.24 No -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1/ Statistical significance testing at the 90 percent confidence interval. -- Dashes indicate no estimate released. Additional information The November 2004 OES national data by occupation is available on the BLS Web site at http://www.bls.gov/oes. Users also may access each occupation's definition and percentile wages. The November 2004 cross-industry data for states and metropolitan areas are available on the BLS Website. Industry staffing patterns at the sector, 3-, 4-, and selected5-digit NAICS levels also are also available from the Internet. These data include industry-specific occupational employment and wage data. OES information is also available through our regional web page at http://www.bls.gov/ro5/ and on our fax-on-demand system. For a catalog of items available to be faxed to you, call our fax-on- demand number at 312-353-1880, menu option 1. If you have additional questions, you can contact an economist in the Midwest BLS information office at 312-353-1880, menu option 0. Information in this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request. Voice phone: 202-691-5200; TDD message referral phone number: 1-800-877-8339. ******************************************************************* To view detailed tables of occupational employment and wages in the Rockford area, go to: www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_40420.htm ******************************************************************* --------------------------------------------------------------------- BLS Fax-on-Demand - Chicago (312) 353-1880 Document No. 9362 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Last Modified Date: April 12, 2006