Workers in the York-Hanover Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $20.10 in May 2014, 11 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 13 of the 22 major occupational groups, including legal; arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media; and computer and mathematical. Only one group had an hourly wage that was significantly higher than its respective national average—production. (See table A and box note at end of release.)

When compared to the nationwide distribution, York employment shares were significantly higher in 4 of the 22 occupational groups—production; transportation and material moving; installation, maintenance, and repair; and healthcare practitioners and technical. Conversely, 12 groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation; these groups included management, computer and mathematical, and business and financial operations.

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

Major occupational group	Employment share (percent of total)			Average (mean) hourly wage
	United States	York-Hanover	Significant difference (1)	United States	York-Hanover	Significant difference (1)	Percent difference (2)
Total, all occupations	100.00%	100.00%		$22.71	$20.10	Yes	-11
Management	5.0	3.4	Yes	54.08	49.78	Yes	-8
Business and financial operations	5.1	3.8	Yes	34.81	31.77	Yes	-9
Computer and mathematical	2.8	1.3	Yes	40.37	34.50	Yes	-15
Architecture and engineering	1.8	2.1	No	39.19	34.11	Yes	-13
Life, physical, and social science	0.8	0.4	Yes	33.69	28.54	Yes	-15
Community and social service	1.4	1.5	No	21.79	18.46	Yes	-15
Legal	0.8	0.3	Yes	48.61	29.95	Yes	-38
Education, training, and library	6.2	5.5	Yes	25.10	25.40	No	1
Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media	1.3	0.9	No	26.82	17.67	Yes	-34
Healthcare practitioners and technical	5.8	6.1	Yes	36.54	34.04	Yes	-7
Healthcare support	2.9	2.6	Yes	13.86	13.67	No	-1
Protective service	2.4	1.6	Yes	21.14	19.51	No	-8
Food preparation and serving related	9.1	8.7	No	10.57	10.00	Yes	-5
Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance	3.2	2.7	Yes	12.68	12.74	No	0
Personal care and service	3.1	2.5	Yes	12.01	12.12	No	1
Sales and related	10.5	10.0	No	18.59	15.85	Yes	-15
Office and administrative support	16.0	15.1	Yes	17.08	16.06	Yes	-6
Farming, fishing, and forestry	0.3	0.0	Yes	12.09	(3)	--	--
Construction and extraction	3.9	4.1	No	22.40	21.03	Yes	-6
Installation, maintenance, and repair	3.9	4.6	Yes	21.74	21.44	No	-1
Production	6.6	11.7	Yes	17.06	17.48	Yes	2
Transportation and material moving	6.8	11.0	Yes	16.57	16.54	No	0
Footnotes: (1) Statistical significance testing at the 90-percent confidence level. (2) A positive percent difference measures how much the mean wage in York-Hanover is above the national mean wage, while a negative difference reflects a lower wage. (3) Estimates not released.

One occupational group—production—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. York had 20,430 jobs in production, accounting for 11.7 percent of local area employment, nearly twice the 6.6-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $17.48, statistically above the national wage of $17.06.

With employment of 1,850, team assemblers was the largest occupation within the production group, followed by production helpers (1,540) and inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers (1,250). Among the higher-paying jobs were first-line supervisors of production and operating workers and paper goods machine setters, operators, and tenders, with mean hourly wages of $27.28 and $21.20, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were laundry and dry-cleaning workers ($10.48) and bakers ($12.49). (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_49620.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 York area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in many of the occupations within the production group. For instance, tool and die makers were employed at nearly four times the national rate in York, and paper goods machine setters, operators, and tenders were employed almost nine times the U.S. average. On the other hand, butchers and meat cutters had a location quotient of 1.0 in York, 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 York Metropolitan Statistical Area included 2,026 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 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 York-Hanover, Pa. Metropolitan Statistical Area includes York County 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, York-Hanover Metropolitan Statistical Area, May 2014

Occupation(1)	Employment(2)		Mean wages
	Level	Location quotient(3)	Hourly	Annual(4)
Production occupations	20,430	1.8	$17.48	$36,350
First-line supervisors of production and operating workers	1,150	1.5	27.28	56,750
Coil winders, tapers, and finishers	70	3.7	13.94	29,000
Electrical and electronic equipment assemblers	390	1.5	13.90	28,910
Electromechanical equipment assemblers	250.0	4.1	20.15	41,910
Engine and other machine assemblers	220	4.5	15.92	33,110
Structural metal fabricators and fitters	(5)	(5)	19.69	40,950
Team assemblers	1,850	1.3	14.74	30,660
Assemblers and fabricators, all other	360	1.2	14.44	30,040
Bakers	340.0	1.5	12.49	25,990
Butchers and meat cutters	180	1.0	12.95	26,930
Food batchmakers	200.0	1.3	12.55	26,100
Food cooking machine operators and tenders	370	7.7	15.79	32,840
Computer-controlled machine tool operators, metal and plastic	390	2.0	19.54	40,630
Computer numerically controlled machine tool programmers, metal and plastic	50	1.4	22.98	47,800
Extruding and drawing machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	140	1.5	16.67	34,680
Rolling machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	(5)	(5)	14.65	30,480
Cutting, punching, and press machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	550	2.2	16.15	33,590
Grinding, lapping, polishing, and buffering machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	370	4.0	19.08	39,700
Lathe and turning machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	(5)	(5)	19.71	41,000
Milling and planing machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	150	5.3	21.40	44,510
Machinists	1,050	2.1	19.49	40,550
Metal-refining furnace operators and tenders	30	1.1	19.37	40,290
Molding, coremaking, and casting machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	320.0	1.9	15.87	33,020
Multiple machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	400.0	3.1	17.60	36,600
Tool and die makers	380	3.9	20.84	43,350
Welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers	870.0	1.8	20.12	41,850
Welding, soldering, and brazing machine setters, operators, and tenders	130	1.8	17.12	35,610
Heat treating equipment setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	30	1.2	17.44	36,280
Plating and coating machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	120.0	2.7	16.61	34,550
Metal workers and plastic workers, all other	50.0	1.8	(5)	(5)
Prepress technicians and workers	100	2.2	18.02	37,480
Printing press operators	600	2.8	17.12	35,620
Print binding and finishing workers	290	4.4	14.03	29,180
Laundry and dry-cleaning workers	230	0.9	10.48	21,800
Pressers, textile, garment, and related materials	80	1.2	11.46	23,850
Sewing machine operators	50	0.3	11.21	23,310
Cabinetmakers and bench carpenters	100	0.9	16.00	33,290
Sawing machine setters, operators, and tenders, wood	110	1.8	13.82	28,740
Woodworking machine setters, operators, and tenders, except sawing	180	2.0	13.38	27,830
Stationary engineers and boiler operators	70	1.4	23.91	49,740
Water and wastewater treatment plant and system operators	190	1.3	21.05	43,790
Gas plant operators	40	2.1	26.98	56,120
Chemical equipment operators and tenders	160	1.9	17.11	35,600
Crushing, grinding, and polishing machine setters, operators, and tenders	(5)	(5)	20.81	43,290
Grinding and polishing workers, hand	100	2.7	13.62	28,330
Mixing and blending machine setters, operators, and tenders	210	1.4	18.02	37,490
Cutting and slicing machine setters, operators, and tenders	260	3.2	16.12	33,530
Extruding, forming, pressing, and compacting machine setters, operators, and tenders	90	1.1	(5)	(5)
Inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers	1,250	2.0	18.40	38,260
Ophthalmic laboratory technicians	70	1.9	12.46	25,910
Packaging and filling machine operators and tenders	1,170	2.4	15.45	32,140
Coating, painting, and spraying machine setters, operators, and tenders	160.0	1.4	16.50	34,330
Painters, transportation equipment	30.0	0.5	18.67	38,840
Adhesive bonding machine operators and tenders	40.0	1.9	16.31	33,930
Cleaning, washing, and metal pickling equipment operators and tenders	50	2.4	14.67	30,510
Molders, shapers, and casters, except metal and plastic	(5)	(5)	15.43	32,090
Paper goods machine setters, operators, and tenders	1,020	8.6	21.20	44,090
Helpers--production workers	1,540	2.8	12.76	26,550
Production workers, all other	230	0.8	17.00	35,360
Footnotes: (1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the York-Hanover MSA, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_49620.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.