For release: Tuesday, October 4, 2011  (PDF)

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Occupational Employment and Wages in Lincoln, Neb., May 2010

Workers in the Lincoln Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $18.83 in May 2010, roughly 12 percent below the nationwide average of $21.35, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Regional Commissioner Charlene Peiffer noted that, after testing for statistical significance, wages in the local area were significantly higher than their respective national averages in 2 of the 22 major occupational groups including farming, fishing, and forestry; and education training and library. Seventeen groups had significantly lower wages than their respective national averages, including computer and mathematical; life, physical, and social science; and architecture and engineering.

When compared to the nationwide distribution, local employment was more highly concentrated in 7 of the 22 occupational groups, including office and administrative support; transportation and material moving; and business and financial operations. Conversely, eight groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including protective service, healthcare support, and installation, maintenance, and repair. (See table A. and box note at end of release.)

Table A. Occupational employment and wages by major occupational group, United States and the Lincoln Metropolitan Statistical Area, and measures of statistical significance, May 2010

Major occupational group	Percent of total employment		Average hourly wage
	United States	Lincoln	United States	Lincoln
Total, all occupations	100.0%	100.0%	$21.35	$18.83*
Management	4.7	3.4*	50.69	43.04*
Business and financial operations	4.8	5.5*	32.54	27.35*
Computer and mathematical	2.6	2.7	37.13	26.95*
Architecture and engineering	1.8	1.5*	36.32	28.84*
Life, physical, and social science	0.8	1.0*	31.92	25.07*
Community and social services	1.5	2.1*	20.76	17.14*
Legal	0.8	0.5*	46.60	39.62
Education, training, and library	6.7	6.4	24.25	28.08*
Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media	1.4	1.8*	25.14	20.08*
Healthcare practitioner and technical	5.8	6.1*	34.27	31.50*
Healthcare support	3.1	2.5*	12.94	12.94
Protective service	2.5	1.7*	20.43	18.44*
Food preparation and serving related	8.7	8.6	10.21	9.50*
Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance	3.3	2.9	12.16	11.37*
Personal care and service	2.7	2.4*	11.82	10.62*
Sales and related	10.6	10.2	17.69	15.14*
Office and administrative support	16.9	18.9*	16.09	14.22*
Farming, fishing, and forestry	0.3	0.1*	11.70	14.06*
Construction and extraction	4.0	3.9	21.09	17.72*
Installation, maintenance, and repair	3.9	3.4*	20.58	19.16*
Production	6.5	6.4	16.24	16.40
Transportation and material moving	6.7	8.1*	15.70	14.41*
Footnotes: * The percent share of employment or mean hourly wage for this area is significantly different from the national average of all areas at the 90-percent confidence level.

One occupational group—office and administrative support—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Lincoln had 30,000 jobs in office and administrative support, accounting for 18.9 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 16.9-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $14.22, measurably below the national wage of $16.09.

With employment of 4,290, general office clerks was the largest occupation within the office and administrative support group, followed by customer service representatives (3,020) and bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks (2,500). Among the higher paying jobs were postal service clerks and postal service mail carriers, with mean hourly wages of $25.55 and $24.44, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks ($8.44) and stock clerks and order fillers ($10.09). (Detailed occupational data for office and administrative support are presented in table 1; for a complete listing of detailed occupations available go to www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_30700.htm)

Location quotients allow us to explore the occupational make-up of a metropolitan area by comparing the composition of jobs in an area relative to the national average. (See table 1.) For example, a location quotient of 2.0 indicates that an occupation accounts for twice the share of employment in the area than it does nationally. In the Lincoln Metropolitan Statistical Area, above average concentrations of employment were found in some of the occupations within the office and administrative support group. For instance, insurance claims and policy processing clerks were employed at 3.5 times the national rate in Lincoln, and computer operators, at 3.4 times the U.S. average. On the other hand, secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical, and executive had a location quotient of 1.0 in Lincoln, indicating that this particular occupation’s local and national employment shares were similar.

These statistics are from the Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) survey, a federal-state cooperative program between BLS and State Workforce Agencies, in this case, the Nebraska Department of Labor. The OES survey provides estimates of employment and hourly and annual wages for wage and salary workers in 22 major occupational groups and nearly 800 non-military detailed occupations for the nation, states, metropolitan statistical areas, metropolitan divisions, and nonmetropolitan areas.