Workers in the Charleston, WV Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $23.31 in May 2020, about 14 percent below the nationwide average of $27.07, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Regional Commissioner Alexandra Hall Bovee noted that, after testing for statistical significance, wages in the local area were higher than their respective national averages in the production major occupational group. Eighteen groups had significantly lower wages than their respective national averages, including computer and mathematical, management, and legal.

When compared to the nationwide distribution, Charleston area employment was more highly concentrated in 8 of the 22 occupational groups, including office and administrative support, healthcare practitioners and technical, and legal. Eleven groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including production, transportation and material moving, and educational instruction and library. (See table A.)

One occupational group—office and administrative support—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Charleston had 17,340 jobs in office and administrative support, accounting for 16.9 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 13.3-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $18.13, significantly below the national wage of $20.38.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the office and administrative support group included general office clerks (2,920), customer service representatives (2,780), and secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical, and executive (1,730). Among the higher-paying jobs in this group were executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants as well as postal service mail carriers, with mean hourly wages of $25.92 and $25.31, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks ($11.10) and receptionists and information clerks ($13.92). (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_16620.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 Charleston area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in many of the occupations within the office and administrative support group. For instance, postal service mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operators were employed at 5.5 times the national rate in Charleston, and legal secretaries and administrative assistants, at 3.4 times the U.S. average. Postal service mail carriers had a location quotient of 0.9 in Charleston, indicating that this particular occupation’s local and national employment shares were similar.

These statistics are from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey, a federal-state cooperative program between BLS and State Workforce Agencies, in this case, Workforce West Virginia.

Technical Note

The Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey is a semiannual survey measuring occupational employment and wage rates for wage and salary workers in nonfarm establishments in the United States. The OEWS 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. OEWS data are available at www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm.

The OEWS 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. OEWS estimates are constructed from a sample of about 1.1 million establishments. Each year, two semiannual panels of approximately 180,000 to 185,000 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 2020 estimates are based on responses from six semiannual panels collected over a 3-year period: May 2020, November 2019, May 2019, November 2018, May 2018, and November 2017. The unweighted sample employment of 83 million across all six semiannual panels represents approximately 56 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 69 percent based on establishments and 66 percent based on weighted sampled employment. The sample in the Charleston, WV Metropolitan Statistical Area included 1,327 establishments with a response rate of 64 percent. For more information about OEWS 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.

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 Charleston, WV Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Boone, Clay, Kanawha, Lincoln and Putnam Counties in West Virginia.

For more information

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

Information in this release will be made available to individuals with sensory impairments 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, Charleston area, May 2020

Occupation (1)	Employment		Mean wages
	Level (2)	Location quotient (3)	Hourly	Annual (4)
Office and administrative support occupations	17,340	1.3	$18.13	$37,710
First-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers	1,470	1.4	24.66	51,290
Switchboard operators, including answering service	100	2.2	13.47	28,020
Telephone operators	40	10.5	15.00	31,200
Bill and account collectors	350	2.2	17.60	36,600
Billing and posting clerks	300	0.9	17.99	37,410
Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks	1,420	1.3	18.17	37,790
Payroll and timekeeping clerks	80	0.8	19.48	40,520
Procurement clerks	100	2.3	19.10	39,720
Tellers	360	1.2	14.46	30,080
Financial clerks, all other	140	6.2	15.36	31,960
Court, municipal, and license clerks	220	1.9	19.21	39,960
Customer service representatives	2,780	1.3	17.55	36,510
Eligibility interviewers, government programs	80	0.7	19.60	40,770
File clerks	110	1.6	16.36	34,030
Hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks	120	0.7	11.10	23,090
Interviewers, except eligibility and loan	320	2.5	15.05	31,300
Library assistants, clerical	40	0.6	15.04	31,290
Loan interviewers and clerks	100	0.7	16.83	35,010
New accounts clerks	(5)	(5)	17.40	36,190
Human resources assistants, except payroll and timekeeping	150	1.9	17.91	37,250
Receptionists and information clerks	850	1.2	13.92	28,960
Reservation and transportation ticket agents and travel clerks	(5)	(5)	20.16	41,940
Information and record clerks, all other	(5)	(5)	21.03	43,750
Couriers and messengers	120	2.3	13.54	28,160
Public safety telecommunicators	80	1.2	18.14	37,730
Dispatchers, except police, fire, and ambulance	150	1.1	16.50	34,310
Meter readers, utilities	40	2.0	25.50	53,040
Postal service clerks	100	1.6	22.55	46,910
Postal service mail carriers	230	0.9	25.31	52,650
Postal service mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operators	430	5.5	22.76	47,340
Production, planning, and expediting clerks	90	0.3	24.01	49,940
Shipping, receiving, and inventory clerks	310	0.6	15.80	32,860
Executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants	240	0.7	25.92	53,910
Legal secretaries and administrative assistants	400	3.4	20.68	43,010
Medical secretaries and administrative assistants	200	0.5	18.35	38,160
Secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical, and executive	1,730	1.3	19.36	40,280
Data entry keyers	180	1.6	13.76	28,620
Insurance claims and policy processing clerks	340	1.9	17.50	36,400
Mail clerks and mail machine operators, except postal service	90	1.5	13.96	29,040
Office clerks, general	2,920	1.4	15.19	31,600
Office machine operators, except computer	40	1.2	15.21	31,640
Footnotes: (1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Charleston, WV Metropolitan Statistical Area, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_16620.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.