Workers in the Erie, PA Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $22.28 in May 2021, 20 percent below the nationwide average of $28.01, 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 lower than their respective national averages in 20 of the 22 major occupational groups, including legal; arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media; and computer and mathematical.

When compared to the nationwide distribution, Erie area employment was more highly concentrated in 7 of the 22 occupational groups, including production, healthcare support, and healthcare practitioners and technical. Twelve groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including business and financial operations, management, and computer and mathematical. (See table A.)

One occupational group—production—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Erie had 11,550 jobs in production, accounting for 10.1 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 6.0-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $19.05, significantly below the national wage of $20.71.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the production group included miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators (1,930), molding, coremaking, and casting machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic (840), and first-line supervisors of production and operating workers (810). Among the higher-paying jobs in this group were first-line supervisors of production and operating workers and water and wastewater treatment plant and system operators, with mean hourly wages of $27.92 and $25.53, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were laundry and dry-cleaning workers ($12.49) and bakers ($14.62). (Detailed data for the production occupations are presented in table 1; for a complete listing of detailed occupations available go to www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_21500.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 Erie area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in many of the occupations within the production group. For instance, molding, coremaking, and casting machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic were employed at 6.4 times the national rate in Erie, and computer numerically controlled tool operators, at 5.8 times the U.S. average. Packaging and filling machine operators and tenders had a location quotient of 1.1 in Erie, 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, the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.

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 179,000 to 187,000 sampled establishments are contacted, one panel in May and the other in November. Responses are obtained by Internet or other electronic means, mail, email, telephone, or personal visit. The May 2021 estimates are based on responses from six semiannual panels collected over a 3-year period: May 2021, November 2020, May 2020, November 2019, May 2019, and November 2018. The unweighted sampled employment of 82 million across all six semiannual panels represents approximately 62 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 67.2 percent based on establishments and 64.5 percent based on weighted sampled employment. The sample in the Erie, PA Metropolitan Statistical Area included 1,471 establishments with a response rate of 61 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 Erie, PA Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Erie County in Pennsylvania.

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: 7-1-1.

Table 1. Employment and wage data for production occupations, Erie metropolitan area, May 2021

Occupation (1)	Employment		Mean wages
	Level (2)	Location quotient (3)	Hourly	Annual (4)
Production occupations	11,550	1.7	$19.05	$39,620
First-line supervisors of production and operating workers	810	1.6	27.92	58,080
Electrical, electronic, and electromechanical assemblers, except coil winders, tapers, and finishers	460	2.1	15.96	33,190
Structural metal fabricators and fitters	100	2.0	20.72	43,100
Miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators	1,930	1.8	15.66	32,580
Bakers	240	1.6	14.62	30,410
Butchers and meat cutters	80	0.6	16.09	33,460
Food batchmakers	220	1.7	16.25	33,790
Forging machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	40	4.6	23.85	49,610
Rolling machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	60	2.4	18.00	37,430
Cutting, punching, and press machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	250	1.7	17.70	36,820
Grinding, lapping, polishing, and buffing machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	170	3.2	17.10	35,570
Lathe and turning machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	50	3.0	20.35	42,320
Machinists	590	2.2	21.47	44,650
Pourers and casters, metal	50	9.8	19.10	39,730
Molding, coremaking, and casting machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	840	6.4	17.44	36,260
Multiple machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	530	4.8	19.51	40,570
Tool and die makers	220	4.3	24.72	51,410
Welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers	810	2.5	20.79	43,230
Welding, soldering, and brazing machine setters, operators, and tenders	70	2.7	21.71	45,170
Plating machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	130	4.8	15.92	33,110
Printing press operators	100	0.8	16.79	34,910
Laundry and dry-cleaning workers	170	1.3	12.49	25,980
Sewing machine operators	70	0.8	16.71	34,750
Cabinetmakers and bench carpenters	60	0.7	21.79	45,330
Water and wastewater treatment plant and system operators	100	1.1	25.53	53,110
Separating, filtering, clarifying, precipitating, and still machine setters, operators, and tenders	40	1.1	19.86	41,300
Mixing and blending machine setters, operators, and tenders	60	0.6	20.11	41,820
Extruding, forming, pressing, and compacting machine setters, operators, and tenders	130	2.8	17.79	37,010
Inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers	620	1.4	19.74	41,070
Packaging and filling machine operators and tenders	320	1.1	17.92	37,270
Coating, painting, and spraying machine setters, operators, and tenders	240	2.0	18.82	39,140
Computer numerically controlled tool operators	740	5.8	21.87	45,490
Computer numerically controlled tool programmers	40	1.7	25.46	52,960
Helpers--production workers	160	1.0	16.35	34,000
Production workers, all other	90	0.6	15.50	32,240
Footnotes: (1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Erie, PA Metropolitan Statistical Area, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_21500.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.