Workers in the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $24.64 in May 2013, 10 percent above the nationwide average of $22.33, 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 higher than their respective national averages in 16 of the 22 major occupational groups, including management, construction and extraction, and legal. (See table A and box note at end of release.)

 

Table A. Occupational employment and wages by major occupational group, United States and the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington Metropolitan Statistical Area, and measures of statistical significance, May 2013

Major occupational group	Percent of total employment		Mean hourly wage
	United States	Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington	United States	Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington	Percent difference(1)
Total, all occupations	100.0	100.0	$22.33	$24.64*	10
Management	4.9	4.4*	53.15	63.70*	20
Business and financial operations	5.0	6.0*	34.14	35.89*	5
Computer and mathematical	2.8	3.2*	39.43	39.82	1
Architecture and engineering	1.8	1.6*	38.51	39.07	1
Life, physical, and social science	0.9	1.3*	33.37	35.92*	8
Community and social service	1.4	2.1*	21.50	21.40	0
Legal	0.8	1.1*	47.89	53.79*	12
Education, training, and library	6.3	6.8*	24.76	27.77*	12
Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media	1.3	1.2*	26.72	27.47	3
Healthcare practitioners and technical	5.8	6.4*	35.93	38.36*	7
Healthcare support	3.0	3.7*	13.61	13.87*	2
Protective service	2.5	2.4	20.92	21.09	1
Food preparation and serving related	9.0	7.9*	10.38	10.90*	5
Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance	3.2	3.1*	12.51	14.13*	13
Personal care and service	3.0	3.3*	11.88	12.27*	3
Sales and related	10.6	10.7	18.37	21.28*	16
Office and administrative support	16.2	17.2*	16.78	18.05*	8
Farming, fishing, and forestry	0.3	0.1*	11.70	13.60*	16
Construction and extraction	3.8	3.0*	21.94	25.63*	17
Installation, maintenance, and repair	3.9	3.6*	21.35	22.59*	6
Production	6.6	4.9*	16.79	18.77*	12
Transportation and material moving	6.8	6.1*	16.28	16.17	-1
* 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.
Footnotes: (1) A positive percent difference measures how much the mean wage in Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington is above the national mean wage, while a negative percent difference reflects a lower wage.

When compared to the nationwide distribution, Philadelphia employment was more highly concentrated in 10 of the 22 occupational groups including office and administrative support, business and financial operations, and healthcare support. Conversely, 10 groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation; these groups included production, food preparation and serving related, and construction and extraction.

One occupational group—life, physical, and social science—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Philadelphia had 33,840 jobs in the life, physical, and social science group, accounting for 1.3 percent of local area employment, significantly larger than the 0.9-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $35.92, significantly higher than the national average of $33.37.

With employment of 7,610, chemists was the largest occupation within life, physical, and social science followed by medical scientists, except epidemiologists (4,570). Among the higher-paying jobs were physicists with a mean hourly wages of $55.61 and biochemists and biophysicists with a wage of $49.05. At the lower end of the wage scale were survey researchers ($17.18) and environmental science and protection technicians, including health ($18.54). (Detailed occupational data for life, physical, and social science are presented in table 1; for a complete listing of detailed occupations available go to https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_37980.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 the Philadelphia area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in several of the occupations within life, physical, and social science. For instance, survey researchers were employed at over five-and-a-half times the national rate in Philadelphia, and chemists at over four times the U.S. average. On the other hand, social science research assistants had a location quotient of 1.0 in Philadelphia, 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; the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development; the Delaware Department of Labor; and the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing, and Regulation.

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. Forms are mailed to approximately 200,000 sampled establishments in May and November each year for a 3-year period. May 2013 estimates are based on responses from six semiannual panels collected in May 2013, November 2012, May 2012, November 2011, May 2011, and November 2010. The overall national response rate for the six panels is 75.3 percent based on establishments and 71.6 percent based on employment. The sample in the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington Metropolitan Statistical Area included 15,490 establishments with a response rate of 76 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 2013 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 Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, Pa.-N.J.-Del.-Md. Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties in Pennsylvania; Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, and Salem Counties in New Jersey; New Castle County in Delaware; and Cecil County in Maryland.

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, Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington Metropolitan Statistical Area, May 2013

Occupation(1)	Employment(2)		Mean wage
	Level	Location quotient(3)	Hourly	Annual(4)
Life, physical, and social science occupations	33,840	1.5	$35.92	$74,720
Food scientists and technologists	180	0.6	33.28	69,220
Soil and plant scientists	90	0.3	31.21	64,910
Biochemists and biophysicists	1,880	3.2	49.05	102,030
Microbiologists	770	1.9	35.40	73,640
Zoologists and wildlife biologists	(5)	(5)	25.65	53,360
Biological scientists, all other	180	0.3	43.45	90,380
Conservation scientists	170	0.5	29.75	61,880
Foresters	70	0.4	34.04	70,790
Epidemiologists	70	0.7	38.60	80,290
Medical scientists, except epidemiologists	4,570	2.2	48.37	100,610
Life scientists, all other	30	0.2	41.89	87,140
Physicists	210	0.6	55.61	115,660
Atmospheric and space scientists	50	0.2	38.53	80,150
Chemists	7,610	4.3	42.93	89,290
Materials scientists	330	2.2	40.13	83,470
Environmental scientists and specialists, including health	1,580	0.9	35.24	73,300
Geoscientists, except hydrologists and geographers	370	0.5	30.79	64,040
Hydrologists	120	0.9	38.26	79,580
Physical scientists, all other	250	0.5	49.45	102,860
Economists	320	0.9	45.08	93,770
Survey researchers	1,960	5.6	17.18	35,730
Clinical, counseling, and school psychologists	2,790	1.3	38.22	79,500
Psychologists, all other	220	1.0	42.16	87,700
Sociologists	210	3.9	34.73	72,240
Urban and regional planners	490	0.7	31.73	66,010
Historians	40	0.7	31.03	64,540
Social scientists and related workers, all other	220	0.3	37.28	77,530
Agricultural and food science technicians	220	0.6	21.19	44,070
Biological technicians	2,640	1.8	23.69	49,270
Chemical technicians	3,110	2.4	24.13	50,200
Geological and petroleum technicians	50	0.1	21.74	45,220
Nuclear technicians	110	0.8	32.63	67,870
Social science research assistants	540	1.0	20.00	41,600
Environmental science and protection technicians, including health	760	1.1	18.54	38,560
Forensic science technicians	90	0.3	24.13	50,190
Life, physical, and social science technicians, all other	1,360	1.1	25.08	52,170
Footnotes: (1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington MSA, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_37980.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 available.