January 21, 2000 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

The top-paying service occupations in 1998

Among the service occupations with the highest wages in 1998, protective service jobs dominated the top positions. Of the eight top-paying service occupations, seven were in the protective service field.

[Chart data—TXT]

Criminal investigators received the highest pay of all the service occupations in 1998, with a mean annual wage of $55,080. The pay of police and detective supervisors was the second highest at $50,080.

Five service occupations had mean annual wages between $40,000 and $50,000. These included fire fighting and prevention supervisors ($45,630), police detectives ($44,100), fire inspectors ($42,770), flight attendants ($42,690) and railroad and transit police and special agents ($40,540). Police patrol officers’ mean annual wage were just below the $40,000 mark at $39,060.

Service occupations include workers in private households and in the fields of cleaning and building service, food preparation and service, health service (such as dental assistants and nursing home aides), personal service, and protective service.

These data are a product of the Occupational Employment Statistics program. Annual wages have been calculated by multiplying the hourly mean wage by a "year-round, full-time" hours figure of 2,080 hours. Find out more in Occupational Employment and Wages, 1998, news release USDL 99-364.