Workers in the Scranton—Wilkes-Barre Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $19.42 in May 2014, roughly 14 percent below the nationwide average of $22.71, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Sheila Watkins, the Bureau’s regional commissioner, noted that, after testing for statistical significance, wages in the local area were significantly lower than their respective national averages in 16 of the 22 major occupational groups, including legal; computer and mathematical; and arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media. (See table A and box note at end of release.)

When compared to the nationwide distribution, Scranton employment shares were significantly higher in six occupational groups including transportation and material moving, production, and healthcare practitioners and technical. Conversely, 11 groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation; these groups included management, business and financial operations, and food preparation and serving related.

Table A. Occupational employment and wages by major occupational group, United States and the Scranton—Wilkes-Barre Metropolitan Statistical Area, and measures of statistical significance, May 2014

Major occupational group	Employment share (percent of total)			Average (mean) hourly wage
	United States	Scranton— Wilkes-Barre	Significant difference (1)	United States	Scranton— Wilkes-Barre	Significant difference (1)	Percent difference (2)
Total, all occupations	100.00%	100.00%		$22.71	$19.42	Yes	-14
Management	5.0	3.2	Yes	54.08	46.70	Yes	-14
Business and financial operations	5.1	3.6	Yes	34.81	29.27	Yes	-16
Computer and mathematical	2.8	1.5	Yes	40.37	30.51	Yes	-24
Architecture and engineering	1.8	1.1	Yes	39.19	36.05	Yes	-8
Life, physical, and social science	0.8	0.5	Yes	33.69	31.78	No	-6
Community and social service	1.4	2.2	Yes	21.79	18.66	Yes	-14
Legal	0.8	0.6	Yes	48.61	28.44	Yes	-41
Education, training, and library	6.2	6.0	No	25.10	26.58	Yes	6
Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media	1.3	0.8	Yes	26.82	18.81	Yes	-30
Healthcare practitioners and technical	5.8	6.8	Yes	36.54	32.09	Yes	-12
Healthcare support	2.9	3.7	Yes	13.86	13.17	Yes	-5
Protective service	2.4	2.1	Yes	21.14	19.42	No	-8
Food preparation and serving related	9.1	8.0	Yes	10.57	10.11	Yes	-4
Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance	3.2	3.1	No	12.68	11.94	Yes	-6
Personal care and service	3.1	3.1	No	12.01	11.36	Yes	-5
Sales and related	10.5	10.5	No	18.59	15.56	Yes	-16
Office and administrative support	16.0	16.9	Yes	17.08	15.67	Yes	-8
Farming, fishing, and forestry	0.3	0.1	Yes	12.09	17.92	Yes	48
Construction and extraction	3.9	3.6	Yes	22.40	20.90	Yes	-7
Installation, maintenance, and repair	3.9	4.0	No	21.74	19.96	Yes	-8
Production	6.6	8.3	Yes	17.06	17.09	No	0
Transportation and material moving	6.8	10.3	Yes	16.57	16.16	No	-2
Footnotes: (1) Statistical significance testing at the 90-percent confidence level. (2) A positive percent difference measures how much the mean wage in Scranton—Wilkes-Barre is above the national mean wage, while a negative percent difference reflects a lower wage.

One occupational group—production—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Scranton had 21,060 jobs in production, accounting for 8.3 percent of local area employment, significantly above the 6.6-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $17.09, similar to the national wage of $17.06.

With employment of 2,130, team assemblers was the largest occupation within the production group, followed by production helpers (1,610). Among the higher-paying jobs were first-line supervisors of production and operating workers, with a mean hourly wage of $28.51, and welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers with a wage of $19.50. At the lower end of the wage scale were production helpers ($12.78) and packaging and filling machine operators and tenders ($13.73). (Detailed occupational data for production are presented in table 1; for a complete listing of detailed occupations available go to www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_42540.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 as it does nationally. In Scranton, above-average concentrations of employment were found in many of the occupations within the production group. For instance, metal and plastic extruding and drawing machine setters, operators, and tenders were employed at four-and-a-half times the national rate in Scranton. In contrast, welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers had a location quotient of 1.1 in Scranton, 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 Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.

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 are also surveyed, but their data are not included in the national estimates. OES estimates are constructed from a sample of about 1.2 million establishments. Each year, forms are mailed to two semiannual panels of approximately 200,000 sampled establishments, one panel in May and the other in November. May 2014 estimates are based on responses from six semiannual panels collected over a 3-year period: May 2014, November 2013, May 2013, November 2012, May 2012, and November 2011. The overall national response rate for the six panels is 74.3 percent based on establishments and 70.5 percent based on employment. The sample in the Scranton—Wilkes-Barre Metropolitan Statistical Area included 2,503 establishments with a response rate of 75 percent. For more information about OES concepts and methodology, go to www.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.tn.htm.

The OES survey provides estimates of employment and hourly and annual wages for wage and salary workers in 22 major occupational groups and 821 detailed occupations for the nation, states, metropolitan statistical areas, metropolitan divisions, and nonmetropolitan areas. In addition, employment and wage estimates for 94 minor groups and 458 broad occupations are available in the national data. OES data by state and metropolitan/nonmetropolitan area are available from www.bls.gov/oes/current/oessrcst.htm and www.bls.gov/oes/current/oessrcma.htm, respectively.

The May 2014 OES estimates are based on the 2010 Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system and the 2012 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). Information about the 2010 SOC is available on the BLS website at www.bls.gov/soc and information about the 2012 NAICS is available at www.bls.gov/bls/naics.htm.

Area definitions

The substate area data published in this release reflect the standards and definitions established by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

The Scranton—Wilkes-Barre Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Lackawanna, Luzerne, and Wyoming Counties in Pennsylvania.

Additional information

OES data are available on our regional web page at https://www.bls.gov/regions/mid-atlantic. Answers to frequently asked questions about the OES data are available at www.bls.gov/oes/oes_ques.htm. Detailed technical information about the OES survey is available in our Survey Methods and Reliability Statement on the BLS website at www.bls.gov/oes/2013/may/methods_statement.pdf. Information in this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request – Voice phone: 202-691-5200; Federal Relay Service: 1-800-877-8339.
 

Table 1. Employment and wage data from the Occupational Employment Statistics survey, by occupation, Scranton--Wilkes-Barre Metropolitan Statistical Area, May 2014

Occupation(1)	Employment(2)		Mean wage
	Level	Location quotient(3)	Hourly	Annual(4)
Production occupations	21,060	1.2	$17.09	$35,540
First-line supervisors of production and operating workers	1,200	1.1	28.51	59,310
Engine and other machine assemblers	30	0.5	16.90	35,140
Structural metal fabricators and fitters	160	1.1	20.09	41,790
Team assemblers	2,130	1.0	13.93	28,960
Assemblers and fabricators, all other	320	0.7	12.23	25,430
Bakers	510	1.6	11.94	24,840
Butchers and meat cutters	300	1.2	15.88	33,040
Meat, poultry, and fish cutters and trimmers	80	0.3	13.93	28,980
Slaughterers and Meat Packers	110	0.7	12.15	25,270
Food batchmakers	440	1.9	14.35	29,840
Food cooking machine operators and tenders	80	1.2	16.30	33,900
Computer-controlled machine tool operators, metal and plastic	290	1.0	17.13	35,620
Extruding and drawing machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	620	4.5	16.08	33,450
Rolling machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	120	1.9	18.38	38,220
Cutting, punching, and press machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	560	1.6	16.61	34,540
Grinding, lapping, polishing, and buffing machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	140	1.1	13.31	27,680
Machinists	480	0.7	21.42	44,560
Molding, coremaking, and casting machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	260	1.1	15.75	32,760
Multiple machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	610	3.3	13.98	29,070
Tool and die makers	100	0.7	21.44	44,590
Welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers	740	1.1	19.50	40,560
Welding, soldering, and brazing machine setters, operators, and tenders	(5)	(5)	16.91	35,180
Heat treating equipment setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	40	1.0	15.57	32,380
Prepress technicians and workers	130	1.9	17.25	35,880
Printing press operators	540	1.7	14.78	30,740
Print binding and finishing workers	190	1.9	15.68	32,610
Laundry and dry-cleaning workers	390	1.1	11.71	24,360
Pressers, textile, garment, and related materials	90	1.0	10.63	22,120
Sewing machine operators	200	0.7	15.06	31,320
Textile cutting machine setters, operators, and tenders	(5)	(5)	15.49	32,220
Textile knitting and weaving machine setters, operators, and tenders	80	1.8	12.51	26,010
Textile, apparel, and furnishings workers, all other	(5)	(5)	14.79	30,750
Cabinetmakers and bench carpenters	50	0.3	15.73	32,720
Sawing machine setters, operators, and tenders, wood	120	1.4	12.05	25,060
Woodworking machine setters, operators, and tenders, except sawing	150	1.1	15.40	32,030
Power plant operators	50	0.6	32.53	67,660
Stationary engineers and boiler operators	60	0.8	21.00	43,680
Water and wastewater treatment plant and system operators	310	1.5	20.63	42,920
Gas plant operators	110	3.6	21.52	44,750
Petroleum pump system operators, refinery operators, and gaugers	(5)	(5)	25.41	52,860
Plant and system operators, all other	40	1.6	19.87	41,330
Chemical equipment operators and tenders	70	0.6	17.08	35,520
Separating, filtering, clarifying, precipitating, and still machine setters, operators, and tenders	120	1.5	17.11	35,590
Crushing, grinding, and polishing machine setters, operators, and tenders	60	1.0	17.15	35,670
Mixing and blending machine setters, operators, and tenders	250	1.1	15.76	32,780
Cutting and slicing machine setters, operators, and tenders	130	1.1	15.15	31,510
Furnace, kiln, oven, drier, and kettle operators and tenders	(5)	(5)	17.73	36,880
Inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers	900	1.0	16.87	35,090
Dental laboratory technicians	110	1.6	16.56	34,450
Ophthalmic laboratory technicians	(5)	(5)	14.09	29,300
Packaging and filling machine operators and tenders	1,530	2.1	13.73	28,550
Coating, painting, and spraying machine setters, operators, and tenders	130	0.8	13.47	28,030
Painters, transportation equipment	60	0.6	19.41	40,360
Painting, coating, and decorating workers	(5)	(5)	9.56	19,870
Molders, shapers, and casters, except metal and plastic	130	2.0	18.61	38,710
Tire builders	120	3.7	13.53	28,150
Helpers--production workers	1,610	2.0	12.78	26,570
Production workers, all other	280	0.7	14.68	30,540
Footnotes: (1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Scranton--Wilkes-Barre MSA, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_42540.htm. (2) Estimates for detailed occupations do not sum to the totals because the totals include occupations not shown separately. Estimates do not include self-employed workers. (3) The location quotient is the ratio of the area concentration of occupational employment to the national average concentration. A location quotient greater than one indicates the occupation has a higher share of employment than average, and a location quotient less than one indicates the occupation is less prevalent in the area than average. (4) Annual wages have been calculated by multiplying the hourly mean wage by a 'year-round, full-time' hours figure of 2,080 hours; for those occupations where there is not an hourly mean wage published, the annual wage has been directly calculated from the reported survey data. (5) Estimates not released.