Workers in the Roanoke, VA Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $22.00 in May 2019, about 14 percent below the nationwide average of $25.72, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Sheila Watkins, the Bureau’s regional commissioner, noted that after testing for statistical significance,no wages in the local area were higher than their respective national averages in 22 major occupational groups. Twenty groups had significantly lower wages than their respective national averages, including legal, management, and computer and mathematical.

When compared to the nationwide distribution, Roanoke area employment was more highly concentrated in 6 of the 22 occupational groups, including healthcare practitioners and technical, transportation and material moving, and production. Conversely, eight groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including management, computer and mathematical, and business and financial operations. (See table A and box note at end of release.)

One occupational group—office and administrative support—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Roanoke had 20,750 jobs in office and administrative support, accounting for 13.5 percent of local area employment, similar to the 13.3-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $17.94, significantly below the national wage of $19.73.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the office and administrative support group included customer service representatives (3,430), office clerks, general (3,110), and bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks (1,770). Among the higher-paying jobs in this group were executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants and first-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers, with mean hourly wages of $27.28 and $26.23, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks ($10.23) and mail clerks and mail machine operators, except postal service ($12.26). (Detailed data for the office and administrative support occupations are presented in table 1; for a complete listing of detailed occupations available go to www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_40220.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 than it does nationally. In the Roanoke area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in some of the occupations within the office and administrative support group. For instance, payroll and timekeeping clerks were employed at 2.2 times the national rate in Roanoke, and postal service mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operators, at 2.4 times the U.S. average. Office clerks, general had a location quotient of 1.0 in Roanoke, 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 Virginia Employment Commission.

Technical Note

The Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) survey is a semiannual survey measuring occupational employment and wage rates for wage and salary workers in nonfarm establishments in the United States. The OES data available from BLS include cross-industry occupational employment and wage estimates for the nation; over 580 areas, including states and the District of Columbia, metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), nonmetropolitan areas, and territories; national industry-specific estimates at the NAICS sector, 3-digit, most 4-digit, and selected 5- and 6-digit industry levels, and national estimates by ownership across all industries and for schools and hospitals. OES data are available at www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm.

The OES survey is a cooperative effort between BLS and the State Workforce Agencies (SWAs). BLS funds the survey and provides the procedures and technical support, while the State Workforce Agencies collect most of the data. OES estimates are constructed from a sample of about 1.1 million establishments. Each year, two semiannual panels of approximately 180,000 to 200,000 sampled establishments are contacted, one panel in May and the other in November. Responses are obtained by mail, Internet or other electronic means, email, telephone, or personal visit. The May 2019 estimates are based on responses from six semiannual panels collected over a 3-year period: May 2019, November 2018, May 2018, November 2017, May 2017, and November 2016. The unweighted sample employment of 83 million across all six semiannual panels represents approximately 57 percent of total national employment. The overall national response rate for the six panels, based on the 50 states and the District of Columbia, is 71 percent based on establishments and 68 percent based on weighted sampled employment. The sample in the Roanoke, VA Metropolitan Statistical Area included 1,684 establishments with a response rate of 71 percent. For more information about OES concepts and methodology, go to www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_tec.htm.

A value that is statistically different from another does not necessarily mean that the difference has economic or practical significance. Statistical significance is concerned with the ability to make confident statements about a universe based on a sample. It is entirely possible that a large difference between two values is not significantly different statistically, while a small difference is, since both the size and heterogeneity of the sample affect the relative error of the data being tested.

The May 2019 OES estimates are the first set of OES estimates to be based in part on survey data collected using the 2018 SOC. These estimates use a hybrid of the 2010 and 2018 SOC systems. More information on the hybrid classification system is available at www.bls.gov/oes/soc_2018.htm.

The May 2019 OES estimates are based on the 2017 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). More information about the 2017 NAICS is available at www.bls.gov/bls/naics.htm.

Metropolitan 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 Roanoke, VA Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Botetourt County, Craig County, Franklin County, Roanoke County, Roanoke city, and Salem city.

For more information

Answers to frequently asked questions about the OES data are available at www.bls.gov/oes/oes_ques.htm. Detailed information about the OES program is available at www.bls.gov/oes/oes_doc.htm.

Information in this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request. Voice phone: (202) 691-5200; Federal Relay Service: (800) 877-8339.

Table 1. Employment and wage data for office and administrative support occupations, Roanoke, VA Metropolitan Statistical Area, May 2019

Occupation (1)	Employment		Mean wages
	Level (2)	Location quotient (3)	Hourly	Annual (4)
Office and administrative support occupations	20,750	1.0	$17.94	$37,320
First-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers	1,680	1.1	26.23	54,550
Bill and account collectors	220	0.9	18.47	38,410
Billing and posting clerks	580	1.2	17.49	36,370
Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks	1,770	1.1	17.86	37,160
Payroll and timekeeping clerks	320	2.2	19.91	41,410
Procurement clerks	130	1.8	16.95	35,250
Tellers	610	1.3	14.63	30,440
Brokerage clerks	40	0.9	24.50	50,960
Court, municipal, and license clerks	140	0.9	23.57	49,020
Credit authorizers, checkers, and clerks	30	1.3	16.59	34,510
Customer service representatives	3,430	1.1	16.16	33,610
Eligibility interviewers, government programs	230	1.5	18.45	38,390
File clerks	30	0.3	14.82	30,830
Hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks	250	0.9	10.23	21,280
Interviewers, except eligibility and loan	270	1.4	15.63	32,510
Library assistants, clerical	60	0.7	13.94	29,000
Loan interviewers and clerks	340	1.6	19.17	39,870
New accounts clerks	(5)	(5)	17.12	35,610
Order clerks	130	0.9	14.34	29,840
Human resources assistants, except payroll and timekeeping	160	1.3	19.53	40,610
Receptionists and information clerks	1,220	1.1	13.56	28,200
Reservation and transportation ticket agents and travel clerks	(5)	(5)	19.68	40,930
Information and record clerks, all other	170	1.1	22.47	46,730
Cargo and freight agents	90	0.9	(5)	(5)
Couriers and messengers	80	1.0	13.62	28,330
Public safety telecommunicators	110	1.1	18.11	37,660
Dispatchers, except police, fire, and ambulance	270	1.3	25.10	52,210
Postal service clerks	80	0.9	24.35	50,650
Postal service mail carriers	380	1.1	24.71	51,400
Postal service mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operators	260	2.4	23.66	49,210
Production, planning, and expediting clerks	330	0.9	21.48	44,680
Shipping, receiving, and inventory clerks	960	1.3	15.70	32,650
Weighers, measurers, checkers, and samplers, recordkeeping	50	0.8	15.56	32,360
Executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants	270	0.5	27.28	56,740
Medical secretaries and administrative assistants	260	0.4	18.32	38,100
Secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical, and executive	1,440	0.7	17.62	36,640
Data entry keyers	100	0.6	14.61	30,390
Insurance claims and policy processing clerks	480	1.8	20.24	42,110
Mail clerks and mail machine operators, except postal service	170	2.0	12.26	25,510
Office clerks, general	3,110	1.0	15.49	32,230
Office machine operators, except computer	80	1.7	14.83	30,850
Office and administrative support workers, all other	130	0.7	20.19	41,990
Footnotes: (1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Roanoke, VA Metropolitan Statistical Area, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_40220.htm. (2) Estimates for detailed occupations may not sum to the totals due to rounding, and because the totals may include occupations that are 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) Estimate not released.