February 4, 1999 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Finance and manufacturing industries report highest weekly wages in 1997

In 1997, the average weekly wage for all industries was $584. Of the 970 industries with wage data available at the 4-digit Standard Industrial Classification level (the most specific level of detail), 38 reported weekly wages more than twice the average. Manufacturing and finance, insurance, and real estate industries accounted for almost two-thirds of those industries.

[Chart data—TXT]

Finance, insurance, and real estate had 10 specific industries where average weekly wages were $1,168 or more, including 6 of the 7 industries with the highest average weekly wages overall. Investment advice ($2,295), security brokers and dealers ($2,267), holding companies not elsewhere classified ($1,931), foreign bank and branches and agencies ($1,924), investors not elsewhere classified ($1,544), and commodity contracts brokers and dealers ($1,532) were those six industries.  (Sports clubs, managers, and promoters in the services division ranked fifth at $1,775.)

Manufacturing had 14 specific industries where average weekly wages were $1,168 or more; the manufacturing industry with the highest average weekly wage—at $1,354—was electronic computer manufacturing. Rounding out the factory top five were industrial organic chemicals, not elsewhere classified ($1,305); petroleum refining ($1,289); cigarettes ($1,286); and medicinals and botanicals ($1,278).

These average weekly wage data are a product of the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (ES-202) program, a virtual census of establishments, employment, and wages of employees on nonfarm payrolls.   Additional information may be obtained from the bulletin, "Employment and Wages Annual Averages, 1997."