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               http://www.bls.gov/oes/
                                           For release:  10:00 A.M. EDT
Media contact:          (202) 691-5902     Friday, May 9, 2008


                 OCCUPATIONAL EMPLOYMENT AND WAGES, 2007


   Retail salespersons, cashiers, general office clerks, combined food
preparation and serving workers, and registered nurses were among the
occupations with the highest U.S. employment in 2007, according to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) of the U.S. Department of Labor.  The
highest paying occupations included physician specialists, dentist
specialists, and chief executives, while dishwashers, fast food cooks,
and combined food preparation and serving workers were among the lowest
paying occupations.  Employment and wage information for all occupations
is shown in table 1.

   These data are from the Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) pro-
gram, 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.  Data are available on the OES homepage at
http://www.bls.gov/oes/.

   OES data can be used to compare wages and employment for different
occupations, or to compare wages and employment for a given occupation
across industries.  For example, the largest occupational group was of-
fice and administrative support occupations, with employment of over
23 million.  Occupations within this group ranged in size from general
office clerks and customer service representatives, with employment of
nearly 3 million and 2.2 million, respectively, to smaller occupations
such as communications equipment operators, all other (3,830); corre-
spondence clerks (15,550); and proofreaders and copy markers (15,650).
The office and administrative support group’s high employment reflects,
in part, its wide distribution across industries.  (See table 2.)  The
largest employers of office and administrative support occupations in-
cluded the finance and insurance, health care and social assistance, and
retail trade sectors, but no single sector employed more than 13 percent
of this group.

   Mean hourly wages for the office and administrative support group
ranged from $18.83 in the utilities sector to $11.60 in accommodation
and food services.  (See table 3.)  Among the highest paying occupations
in the office and administrative support group were first-line supervi-
sors and managers of office and administrative support workers, with
a mean hourly wage of $22.89; postal service clerks ($21.29); postal
service mail carriers ($21.17); and production, planning, and expediting
clerks ($19.74).  Hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks ($9.66); stock
clerks and order fillers ($10.93); and tellers ($11.36) were among the
lowest paid occupations in the group.

   OES data also can be used to make comparisons across geographical
areas.  For instance, loan interviewers and clerks earned a mean hourly 
wage of $22.65 in Santa Cruz-Watsonville, Calif., as compared to $9.79
in Alexandria, La.  Employment of loan interviewers and clerks was similar
in both areas:  130 in Santa Cruz-Watsonville and 110 in Alexandria.  (See
table 7.)



                                     - 2 -



Major Occupational Group Employment and Wages by Industry Sector

   After office and administrative support occupations, sales and related
occupations was the largest occupational group, with employment of over
14 million.  Food preparation and serving related occupations, production 
occupations, and transportation and material moving occupations also were 
among the largest occupational groups.  While some occupational groups were 
highly concentrated in specific industry sectors, others were widely dis-
tributed 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, management occupations; business and financial operations occupa-
tions; and installation, maintenance, and repair occupations were more
evenly distributed across sectors.  (See table 2.)

   Management was the highest paying occupational group, with a mean hourly
wage of $46.22, followed by legal occupations at $42.53.  Food preparation
and serving related occupations; farming, fishing, and forestry occupations;
and building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations were among the
lowest paying occupational groups.  (See table 3.)

   Utilities; management of companies and enterprises; finance and insurance;
information; and professional, scientific, and technical services were among
the highest paying sectors for several occupational groups.  Accommodation and
food services; retail trade; and agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting
were among the lowest paying sectors.  For example, mean hourly wages for busi-
ness and financial operations occupations ranged from $34.27 in professional,
scientific, and technical services to $21.84 in accommodation and food services,
while wages for sales and related occupations ranged from $32.40 in finance and
insurance to $9.54 in accommodation and food services.

Detailed Occupational Employment and Wages by Detailed Industry

   In addition to the occupational group and industry sector data previously
discussed, OES data also are available for detailed occupations and industries.
For example, table 4 shows employment and wages by industry for loan officers.
Nearly 71 percent of loan officers were employed in two industries: depository
credit intermediation (includes commercial banks, savings institutions, and
credit unions) and nondepository credit intermediation (includes credit card
issuing, consumer lending, and real estate credit).  The other large employers 
of this occupation are:  activities related to credit intermediation (includes 
mortgage and nonmortgage loan brokers), management of companies and enterprises,
and insurance carriers.  The mean hourly wage for loan officers in depository credit
intermediation was $28.43, below the U.S. average of $30.10 for this occupation.  
Wages for loan officers in nondepository credit intermediation and in management of 
companies and enterprises were slightly above the U.S. average, at $31.09 and 
$31.28, respectively, while wages in the other two industries were similar to 
the U.S. average.

   Although depository credit intermediation was the largest employer of loan
officers, loan officers was only the second largest occupation in this industry,
representing about 7 percent of industry employment.  (See table 5.)  Tellers was
by far the largest occupation in the industry, with 545,470 jobs making up over 
30 percent of industry employment.  Many of the largest occupations in depository
credit intermediation were office and administrative support occupations.  In ad-
dition to tellers, these occupations included first-line supervisors/managers of
office and administrative support workers; customer service representatives; new
accounts clerks; loan interviewers and clerks; bookkeeping, accounting, and au-
diting clerks; and general office clerks.  Financial managers and securities, com-
modities, and financial services sales agents also were among the largest occupa-
tions in this industry.


                                   - 3 -



Occupational Wages by State and Area

   OES data also allow comparison of occupational employment and wages across
states and metropolitan areas.  Tables 6 and 7 show the highest- and lowest-
paying states and metropolitan areas for selected detailed occupations.  For
example, state mean hourly wages for financial managers ranged from $66.20 in
New York to $32.02 in West Virginia, while wages for construction laborers
ranged from $21.48 in Alaska to $10.38 in Texas.

   California, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, and New York were among the
highest paying states for 2 of the 4 selected occupations.  Although signi-
ficantly smaller in terms of employment than the states listed above, Alaska also 
was among the highest paying states for three of the selected occupations, and
Hawaii was among the highest paying states for two.  West Virginia was among the 
lowest paying states for 3 of the 4 selected occupations, while Louisiana,
Mississippi, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Wyoming were among the lowest paying 
states for 2 of the 4 occupations.  Although in general the lowest paying states
did not have large employment of the selected occupations, one notable exception 
is Texas, where nearly 120,000 construction laborers were employed, but which also 
was one of the lowest paying states for this occupation.

   At the metropolitan area level, mean hourly wages for the selected occupations
were about twice as much in the highest paying areas as in the lowest paying areas.
(See table 7.) For example, wages for financial managers ranged from $68.22 in
New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, N.Y.-N.J.-Pa., to $27.18 in Pocatello, 
Idaho, while wages for construction laborers ranged from $23.91 in Leominster-F
itchburg-Gardner, Mass., to $8.23 in Brownsville-Harlingen, Texas.  Metropolitan 
areas in California appeared several times among the highest paying areas for the 
selected occupations; Anchorage, Alaska, and New York-Northern New Jersey-Long 
Island, N.Y.-N.J.-Pa., also were among the highest paying areas for 2 of the 4 
occupations.  Several of the lowest paying areas for construction laborers were 
located in Texas, while metropolitan areas in Idaho were among the lowest paying 
areas for both financial managers and loan officers.  Outside of these two states, 
many of the remaining lower paying areas for the selected occupations were located 
in the South.

Additional Information

   The Occupational Employment Statistics program produces cross-industry occupational
employment and wage estimates nationwide and for all states, 375 metropolitan areas,
34 metropolitan divisions, and 175 nonmetropolitan areas.  OES also publishes national
industry-specific occupational employment and wage estimates for sectors and 3-, 4-,
and selected 5-digit North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) industries.
In addition to mean hourly and annual wages, wage data include 10th, 25th, 50th (me-
dian), 75th, and 90th percentile wages, which can be used to show the distribution of
wages within an occupation or industry.  OES data are produced by a cooperative effort
between BLS and State Workforce Agencies, and are based on a sample of 1.2 million 
business establishments, collected in 6 semiannual panels over a 3-year period.  Complete
May 2007 Occupational Employment Statistics data are available on the OES Web site at
http://www.bls.gov/oes/.





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   |                                                                          |
   |                   Upcoming Reduction in Sample Size of                   |
   |                 Occupational Employment Statistics Survey                |
   |                                                                          |
   |    Due to budget constraints, Occupational Employment Statistics has     |
   | reduced the sample size of the May 2008 panel by 20 percent.  Because    |
   | OES estimates are produced from 3 years of pooled data, this one-time    |
   | sample reduction will affect estimates for May 2008, May 2009, and May   |
   | 2010.  This reduction is expected to decrease the number of published    |
   | employment estimates by at least 5 percent, or about 25,000 estimates,   |
   | and will decrease the accuracy of the remaining estimates.  The number   |
   | and quality of wage estimates also are expected to decline.  These cut-  |
   | backs are being implemented in response to a reduction in funding to the |
   | BLS that resulted from The 2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act enacted  |
   | on December 26, 2007.                                                    |
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