Workers in the Green Bay, WI Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $24.76 in May 2021, 12 percent below the nationwide average of $28.01, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Regional Commissioner Jason Palmer noted that, after testing for statistical significance, wages in the local area were lower than their respective national averages in 17 of the 22 major occupational groups, including arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media; legal; and computer and mathematical. Two groups had significantly higher wages than their respective national averages including construction and extraction.

When compared to the nationwide distribution, Green Bay area employment was more highly concentrated in 5 of the 22 occupational groups, including production, transportation and material moving, and office and administrative support. Fifteen groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including management, protective service, and educational instruction and library. (See table A.)

One occupational group—production—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Green Bay had 20,240 jobs in production, accounting for 12.3 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 6.0-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $20.74, compared to the national wage of $20.71.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the production group included packaging and filling machine operators and tenders (1,890) and miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators (1,670). Among the higher-paying jobs in this group were power plant operators and first-line supervisors of production and operating workers, with mean hourly wages of $31.98 and $31.85, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were laundry and dry-cleaning workers ($12.62) and pressers, textile, garment, and related materials ($12.88). (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_24580.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 Green Bay area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in many of the occupations within the production group. For instance, paper goods machine setters, operators, and tenders were employed at 15.2 times the national rate in Green Bay, and slaughterers and meat packers, at 7.8 times the U.S. average. Electrical, electronic, and electromechanical assemblers, except coil winders, tapers, and finishers had a location quotient of 1.0 in Green Bay, 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 Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.

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 Green Bay, WI Metropolitan Statistical Area included 1,809 establishments with a response rate of 70 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 Green Bay, WI Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Brown County, Kewaunee County, and Oconto County.

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; Telecommunications Relay Service: 7-1-1.

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

Occupation (1)	Employment		Mean wages
	Level (2)	Location quotient (3)	Hourly	Annual (4)
Production occupations	20,240	2.1	$20.74	$43,140
First-line supervisors of production and operating workers	1,550	2.1	31.85	66,250
Electrical, electronic, and electromechanical assemblers, except coil winders, tapers, and finishers	320	1.0	19.06	39,640
Engine and other machine assemblers	40	0.7	22.07	45,900
Structural metal fabricators and fitters	220	3.0	21.47	44,650
Miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators	1,670	1.1	17.39	36,170
Bakers	330	1.6	15.46	32,160
Butchers and meat cutters	140	0.8	17.39	36,160
Meat, poultry, and fish cutters and trimmers	380	2.5	17.11	35,590
Slaughterers and meat packers	790	7.8	15.44	32,110
Food batchmakers	950	5.2	18.93	39,380
Food cooking machine operators and tenders	170	5.5	18.82	39,140
Food processing workers, all other	50	0.9	18.51	38,500
Rolling machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	30	0.9	17.61	36,640
Cutting, punching, and press machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	410	2.0	19.50	40,550
Grinding, lapping, polishing, and buffing machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	130	1.6	20.93	43,530
Machinists	470	1.2	21.76	45,250
Metal-refining furnace operators and tenders	90	5.1	25.48	52,990
Molding, coremaking, and casting machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	260	1.4	17.85	37,120
Multiple machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	120	0.7	20.90	43,480
Tool and die makers	70	0.9	23.82	49,540
Welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers	770	1.6	22.82	47,460
Welding, soldering, and brazing machine setters, operators, and tenders	60	1.8	19.82	41,220
Plating machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	180	4.7	15.08	31,370
Prepress technicians and workers	190	6.4	21.30	44,300
Printing press operators	1,040	6.1	21.59	44,900
Print binding and finishing workers	350	7.2	17.84	37,100
Laundry and dry-cleaning workers	180	1.0	12.62	26,260
Pressers, textile, garment, and related materials	30	1.0	12.88	26,790
Sewing machine operators	130	0.9	15.74	32,740
Upholsterers	40	1.3	18.15	37,740
Cabinetmakers and bench carpenters	240	2.2	19.47	40,490
Furniture finishers	60	3.3	18.60	38,690
Sawing machine setters, operators, and tenders, wood	80	1.5	17.40	36,190
Woodworking machine setters, operators, and tenders, except sawing	360	4.6	15.71	32,670
Power plant operators	40	1.1	31.98	66,520
Water and wastewater treatment plant and system operators	150	1.1	26.60	55,330
Chemical equipment operators and tenders	50	0.4	19.30	40,150
Separating, filtering, clarifying, precipitating, and still machine setters, operators, and tenders	90	1.6	23.05	47,930
Mixing and blending machine setters, operators, and tenders	460	3.6	23.03	47,900
Cutting and slicing machine setters, operators, and tenders	230	3.5	21.81	45,350
Furnace, kiln, oven, drier, and kettle operators and tenders	40	2.2	20.09	41,780
Inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers	1,050	1.6	20.34	42,300
Dental laboratory technicians	90	2.1	18.73	38,950
Packaging and filling machine operators and tenders	1,890	4.5	18.45	38,380
Coating, painting, and spraying machine setters, operators, and tenders	300	1.8	20.00	41,600
Computer numerically controlled tool operators	640	3.5	24.49	50,940
Computer numerically controlled tool programmers	60	1.9	26.67	55,470
Paper goods machine setters, operators, and tenders	1,560	15.2	23.61	49,100
Helpers--production workers	510	2.2	20.16	41,920
Production workers, all other	200	0.9	17.48	36,370
Footnotes: (1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Green Bay, WI Metropolitan Statistical Area, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_24580.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.