RSE Table 17 Union and nonunion workers: Relative standard errors(1) of mean hourly earnings(2) by major sector and for major occupational groups Union Nonunion Occupational group(3) Private State and Private State and Civilian industry local Civilian industry local workers workers government workers workers government workers workers All workers........................................................... 2.6% 2.8% 3.4% 1.5% 1.5% 8.9% Management, professional, and related............................... 4.2 1.7 4.9 1.7 1.7 7.0 Management, business, and financial............................... 7.2 – 8.1 1.9 2.1 3.7 Professional and related.......................................... 4.0 1.9 4.6 2.5 2.4 9.0 Service............................................................. 5.3 4.4 3.8 1.8 2.0 4.1 Sales and office.................................................... 4.2 6.4 5.3 1.4 1.3 8.7 Sales and related................................................. 6.3 7.7 – 2.8 2.7 – Office and administrative support................................. 3.6 7.0 5.2 1.1 1.3 5.1 Natural resources, construction, and maintenance.................... 3.5 4.5 3.3 4.6 4.7 16.9 Construction and extraction...................................... 4.3 5.1 3.4 3.5 4.3 21.0 Installation, maintenance, and repair............................. 2.3 3.9 4.8 5.8 5.9 – Production, transportation, and material moving..................... 3.3 3.5 10.1 2.0 2.1 7.9 Production........................................................ 6.5 7.7 – 3.1 3.1 – Transportation and material moving................................ 5.4 5.5 8.8 2.4 2.5 9.1 1 The relative standard error (RSE) is the standard error expressed as a percent of the estimate. It can be used to calculate a "confidence interval" around a sample estimate. For more information about RSEs, see chapter 8 of the BLS Handbook of Methods, at https://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/homch8_a.htm. 2 Earnings are the straight-time hourly wages or salaries paid to employees. They include incentive pay, cost-of-living adjustments, and hazard pay. Excluded are premium pay for overtime, vacations, and holidays; nonproduction bonuses; and tips. The mean is computed by totaling the pay of all workers and dividing by the number of workers, weighted by hours. 3 The NCS uses the 2000 Standard Occupational Classification coding structure, which defines more than 800 unique occupations, to match jobs sampled by the survey. Military occupations are excluded from the survey. NOTE: Dashes indicate that data did not meet publication criteria. SOURCE: Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Compensation Survey.