Workers in the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $29.74 in May 2021, 6 percent above 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 higher than their respective national averages in 14 of the 22 major occupational groups, including management, construction and extraction, and educational instruction and library. Four groups had significantly lower wages than their respective national averages, including arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media; computer and mathematical; and transportation and material moving.

When compared to the nationwide distribution, Philadelphia area employment was more highly concentrated in 10 of the 22 occupational groups, including healthcare support, healthcare practitioners and technical, and educational instruction and library. Ten groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including production, food preparation and serving related, and construction and extraction. (See table A.)

One occupational group—healthcare support—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Philadelphia had 170,600 jobs in healthcare support, accounting for 6.4 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 4.7-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $15.81, significantly below the national wage of $16.02.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the healthcare support group included home health and personal care aides (103,990) and nursing assistants (31,280). Among the higher-paying jobs in this group were physical therapist assistants and occupational therapy assistants, with mean hourly wages of $29.42 and $29.22, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were home health and personal care aides ($13.90) and physical therapist aides ($15.10). (Detailed data for the healthcare support occupations are presented in table 1; for a complete listing of detailed occupations available go to 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 than it does nationally. In the Philadelphia area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in some of the occupations within the healthcare support group. For instance, orderlies were employed at 2.1 times the national rate in Philadelphia, and home health and personal care aides, at 1.6 times the U.S. average. Phlebotomists 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 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, the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development, the Delaware Department of Labor, and the Maryland Department of Labor.

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 Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD Metropolitan Statistical Area included 13,615 establishments with a response rate of 60 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 Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD Metropolitan Statistical Area includes New Castle County, DE; Cecil County, MD; Burlington County, NJ; Camden County, NJ; Gloucester County, NJ; Salem County, NJ; Bucks County, PA; Chester County, PA; Delaware County, PA; Montgomery County, PA; and Philadelphia County, PA.

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 healthcare support occupations, Philadelphia metropolitan area, May 2021

Occupation (1)	Employment		Mean wages
	Level (2)	Location quotient (3)	Hourly	Annual (4)
Healthcare support occupations	170,600	1.4	$15.81	$32,880
Home health and personal care aides	103,990	1.6	13.90	28,910
Nursing assistants	31,280	1.3	17.14	35,650
Orderlies	1,750	2.1	17.11	35,600
Psychiatric aides	960	1.3	20.41	42,450
Occupational therapy assistants	1,020	1.3	29.22	60,770
Occupational therapy aides	160	2.5	20.89	43,450
Physical therapist assistants	1,940	1.1	29.42	61,180
Physical therapist aides	890	1.1	15.10	31,400
Massage therapists	1,260	0.8	23.35	48,560
Dental assistants	4,970	0.8	22.37	46,540
Medical assistants	13,360	1.0	18.97	39,450
Medical equipment preparers	1,420	1.2	20.84	43,350
Medical transcriptionists	830	0.8	18.36	38,180
Pharmacy aides	870	1.1	16.52	34,370
Veterinary assistants and laboratory animal caretakers	1,710	0.9	15.61	32,460
Phlebotomists	2,450	1.0	19.67	40,910
Healthcare support workers, all other	1,760	0.9	19.42	40,390
Footnotes: (1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD Metropolitan Statistical Area, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_37980.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.