Occupational Employment and Wages Summary
Technical information: (202) 691-6569 USDL 09-0457 http://www.bls.gov/oes/ For release: 10:00 A.M. (EDT) Media contact: (202) 691-5902 Friday, May 1, 2009 OCCUPATIONAL EMPLOYMENT AND WAGES, 2008 In 2008, the U.S. median wage was $15.57 per hour or $32,390 per year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) of the U.S. Department of Labor. These data are from the Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) program, which provides employment and wage estimates for wage and salary workers in 22 major occupational groups and 801 detailed occupations. OES produces data by occupation for the nation, states, metropolitan areas, metropolitan divisions, and nonmetropolitan areas, and by occupation and industry for the nation. National cross-industry employment and wage infor- mation for all occupations is shown in table 1. Complete data are available from the OES homepage at http://www.bls.gov/oes/. The median wage represents the pay of the typical worker. Table 4 shows employment and wage information for occupations with median wages between 5 percent above and 5 percent below the U.S. median wage. Many of the occupations with wages within this range were office and administrative support, construction and extraction, or production occupations. OES data can be used to compare employment and wages for different occupations, such as the occupations with wages near the U.S. median shown in table 4. With employment of 1.9 and 1.3 million, respectively, bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks; and general maintenance and repair workers were the largest occupations with wages near the U.S. median, and also were among the 20 largest occupations overall. The 2 largest occupations in the U.S., retail salespersons and cashiers, had employment of approximately 4.4 and 3.5 million, respectively. ----------------------------------------------------------------- | | | Changes to Occupational Employment Statistics Data | | | | Effective with this news release, the Occupational Employ- | | ment Statistics program has switched the basis for their indus- | | try classification from the 2002 North American Industry Clas- | | sification System (NAICS) to the 2007 NAICS. Historical data | | were not revised. | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- - 2 - Other large occupations with wages near the U.S. median included all other teachers and instructors, with employment of 574,540; billing and posting clerks and machine operators (512,120); inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers (467,010); welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers (392,520); and dental assistants (293,090). Among the small- est occupations with wages near the U.S. median were forest fire inspectors and prevention specialists, farm labor contractors, wood model makers, and wood patternmakers, each of which had employment levels between 1,000 and 2,000. While some of these occupations were concentrated in specific industries, others were more widely distributed across industries. For example, although 93 percent of dental assistants worked in offices of dentists, the largest employer of general maintenance and repair workers--lessors of real estate-- employed only about 10 percent of this occupation. Median wages for occupations shown in table 4 ranged from $14.83 to $16.35 per hour. In contrast, the lowest paying occupations included gaming dealers; combined food preparation and serving workers; waiters and waitresses; dining room and cafeteria attendants and bartender helpers; and fast food cooks, with median wages ranging from $7.84 to $8.12 per hour. Among the highest paying occupations were several specialty physician and dentist occupations, which had median wages over $80.00 per hour or $166,400 annually. Major Occupational Group Employment and Wages by Industry Sector Most occupations with wages near the U.S. median were office and administrative support; construction and extraction; installation, maintenance, and repair; or production occupations. Table 4 contains 26 occupations in the production group, making this group the one with the largest number of occupations earning near the median wage. Twelve office and administrative support occupations had wages near the U.S. median; however, total employment in these 12 occupations was approxi- mately 3.8 million, as compared to total employment of 2.1 million for the production occupations shown in table 4. Office and administrative support also was the largest occupational group overall, with total employment of 23.2 million, followed by sales and related occupations, with total employment of 14.3 million, and food preparation and serving related occupations, with total employment of 11.4 million. (See table 2.) While some occupational groups were highly concentrated in specific industry sectors, others were distributed more evenly across sectors. For example, nearly 89 percent of employment in education, training, and library occupations was found in the educational services sector, and over 87 percent of employment in healthcare support occupations was found in the health care and social assistance sector. In contrast, although retail trade, finance and insurance, and health care and social assistance were among the largest employers of office and administrative support occupations, no single sector employed more than 12.4 percent of this group. (See table 2.) The highest paying occupational groups included management occupations, with a median hourly wage of $42.15, legal occupations ($34.49), and com- puter and mathematical science occupations ($34.26). Food preparation and serving related occupations ($8.59); farming, fishing, and forestry occu- pations ($9.34); personal care and service occupations ($9.82); and building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations ($10.52) were among the lowest paying occupational groups. (See table 3.) - 3 - Wages for the occupational groups varied by industry. Utilities; transportation and warehousing; information; and finance and insurance were among the highest paying industry sectors for several occupational groups. Agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting; retail trade; and accommodation and food services were among the lowest paying sectors. For example, median hourly wages for business and financial operations occupations ranged from $33.75 in utilities to $20.94 in accommodation and food services, while median wages for office and administrative sup- port occupations ranged from $19.57 in transportation and warehousing to $10.75 in retail trade. Detailed Occupational Employment and Wages by Detailed Industry In addition to the occupational group and industry sector data pre- viously discussed, OES data also are available for detailed occupations and industries. For example, table 5 shows employment and wages by in- dustry for bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks. Employment in this occupation was widely distributed across industries. The accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping, and payroll services industry employed more bookkeeping clerks than any other industry, but only about 5.4 percent of bookkeeping clerks were employed in this industry. Other large em- ployers of this occupation were building equipment contractors, deposi- tory credit intermediation, management of companies and enterprises, and local government (OES designation); each representing less than 5 percent of occupational employment. The median hourly wage for book- keeping clerks in these industries ranged from $14.43 in depository credit intermediation to $16.22 in building equipment contractors. Although accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping, and payroll serv- ices employed a relatively small percentage of all bookkeeping clerks, this was the second largest occupation in the accounting services indus- try, representing about 11.4 percent of industry employment. (See table 6.) Accountants and auditors was by far the largest occupation in the industry, with 286,110 jobs making up about one-third of industry em- ployment. Tax preparers was the third largest occupation in accounting services, with employment of 61,160. Most of the other large occupations in this industry were office and administrative support occupations. Occupational Employment and Wages by State and Area OES data also allow comparison of occupational employment and wages across states and metropolitan areas. Tables 7 and 8 show the states and metropolitan areas with the highest employment and highest employment concentrations of selected detailed occupations. Areas with high total employment also tend to be among the largest employers of any individual occupation, while employment concentrations reflect factors other than overall employment levels, such as the area's industry mix. For example, Texas employed more welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers than any other state, with 53,530 jobs in this occupation; and Wyoming, although it employed fewer total welders than Texas, had one of the highest em- ployment concentrations in this occupation, with welders representing over 9 jobs out of every 1,000 in the state. Louisiana was the only state with both high employment levels and a high employment concentra- tion of this occupation. (See table 7.) Aside from Louisiana, the only state appearing on both sides of table 7 for the same occupation is California, which was both one of the largest employers of dental assistants and one of the states with the highest concentrations of this occupation. Other states with high concentrations of dental assistants were Utah and Washington. Nevada and Hawaii had some of the highest concentrations of construction and maintenance painters, while Connecticut and Nebraska had some of the highest concentrations of insurance claims and policy processing clerks. Although all of the selected occupations shown in table 7 had national median wages near the U.S. median, wages for each occupation varied across states. For example, among the states shown in the table, median wages for welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers varied from $13.83 in South Dakota to $21.29 in Wyoming, while median wages for construction and maintenance painters varied from $13.82 in Texas to $23.14 in Hawaii. - 4 - At the metropolitan area level, as at the state level, areas with high employment of the selected occupations also tended to have high overall employment levels. (See table 8.) Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, Ill., and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, Calif., were among the largest employers for all of the selected occupations, while New York- White Plains-Wayne, N.Y.-N.J., and Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, Texas, were among the largest employers for 3 out of the 4 occupations. These also were among the largest metropolitan areas or metropolitan divisions in the United States in terms of total employment. While both Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, Texas, and Dallas-Plano- Irving, Texas, were among the metropolitan areas with the highest employment of welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers, two other metropolitan areas in Texas--Odessa and Beaumont-Port Arthur--reported some of the highest employment concentrations of this occupation. Houma-Bayou Cane-Thibodaux, La., and Peoria, Ill., also had high con- centrations of welders. Two metropolitan divisions in California-- Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale and Santa Ana-Anaheim-Irvine--were among the largest employers of dental assistants, while four of the metropolitan areas with the highest concentrations of dental assistants also were in California. Naples-Marco Island, Fla., and Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas, were among the areas with the highest concentrations of construction and maintenance painters, while Wausau, Wis., and Macon, Ga., were among the areas with the highest concentrations of insurance claims and policy processing clerks, although both areas employed rela- tively few workers in this occupation. Wages for the selected occupa- tions varied by metropolitan area. For example, among the metropoli- tan areas shown, median wages for construction and maintenance painters ranged from $13.46 in Jacksonville, N.C., to $21.85 in Chicago-Naperville- Joliet, Ill., while wages for insurance claims and policy processing clerks ranged from $14.21 in Wausau, Wis., to $19.30 in Boston-Cambridge- Quincy, Mass. Additional Information The Occupational Employment Statistics program produces cross- industry occupational employment and wage estimates nationwide and for all states, 377 metropolitan areas, 34 metropolitan divisions, and 174 nonmetropolitan areas. OES also publishes national industry- specific occupational employment and wage estimates for NAICS sectors and 3-, 4-, and selected 5-digit industries. In addition to mean hourly and annual wages, wage data include 10th, 25th, 50th (median), 75th, and 90th percentile wages, which can be used to show the distri- bution of wages within an occupation or industry. OES data are pro- duced by a cooperative effort between BLS and State Workforce Agencies, and are based on a sample of 1.2 million business establishments, col- lected in 6 semiannual panels over a 3-year period. Complete May 2008 Occupational Employment Statistics data are available from the OES Web site at http://www.bls.gov/oes/.
- Occupational Employment and Wages Technical Note
- Table 1. National employment and wage data from the Occupational Employment Statistics survey by occupation, May 2008
- Table 2. Employment by industry and occupational group, May 2008
- Table 3. Hourly median wage rates by industry and occupational group, May 2008
- Table 4. National employment and wage data for occupations with wages near the all-occupations median, May 2008
- Table 5. National employment and wages for bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks by industry, May 2008
- Table 6. National employment and wages for the 10 largest occupations in the accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping, and payroll services industry, May 2008
- Table 7. States with highest employment and highest employment concentration in selected occupations, May 2008
- Table 8. Metropolitan areas or divisions with highest employment and highest employment concentration in selected occupations, May 2008
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Last Modified Date: May 01, 2009