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News Release Information

24-1025-CHI
Monday, July 15, 2024

Contacts Technical information: Media contact:
  • (312) 353-1138

Occupational Employment and Wages in Waterloo-Cedar Falls — May 2023

Workers in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls, IA Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $26.66 in May 2023, compared to the nationwide average of $31.48, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Regional Commissioner Jason Palmer noted that higher paying major occupational groups included management ($51.32), architecture and engineering ($46.58), and healthcare practitioners and technical ($41.89). Lower paying occupations included food preparation and serving related ($14.52), personal care and service ($15.71), and building and grounds cleaning and maintenance ($18.27). (See table A.)

Occupational groups with the highest employment in the Waterloo area included transportation and material moving (10.7 percent), office and administrative support (10.5 percent), and production (9.7 percent). Major occupational groups on the lower end of local employment included legal (0.4 percent); life, physical, and social science (0.5 percent); and arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media (1.2 percent). (See table A.)

Table A. Occupational employment and wages by major occupational group, United States and the Waterloo metropolitan area, May 2023
Major occupational groupPercent of total employmentMean hourly wage ($)
United StatesWaterlooUnited StatesWaterloo

Total, all occupations

100.0100.031.4826.66

Management

6.96.366.2351.32

Business and financial operations

6.64.543.5535.16

Computer and mathematical

3.41.854.3941.56

Architecture and engineering

1.73.047.6446.58

Life, physical, and social science

0.90.542.2434.87

Community and social service

1.61.328.3624.23

Legal

0.80.464.3441.02

Educational instruction and library

5.86.831.9226.78

Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media

1.41.236.3125.70

Healthcare practitioners and technical

6.16.249.0741.89

Healthcare support

4.74.118.3718.45

Protective service

2.31.527.7427.91

Food preparation and serving related

8.78.516.5814.52

Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance

2.93.918.4318.27

Personal care and service

2.02.518.4815.71

Sales and related

8.88.425.6220.85

Office and administrative support

12.210.523.0521.50

Farming, fishing, and forestry

0.30.319.2221.72

Construction and extraction

4.13.929.5728.90

Installation, maintenance, and repair

3.94.128.1326.77

Production

5.89.722.9023.29

Transportation and material moving

9.110.722.4521.46

One occupational group—office and administrative support—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Waterloo had 9,050 jobs in office and administrative support, accounting for 10.5 percent of local area employment, compared to the 12.2-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $21.50, compared to the national wage of $23.05.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the office and administrative support group included customer service representatives (1,560), office clerks, general (1,360), and bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks (730). 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 $29.91 and $28.82, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were library assistants, clerical ($12.70) and hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks ($13.78). (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_47940.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 Waterloo area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in some of the occupations within the office and administrative support group. For instance, bill and account collectors were employed at 1.9 times the national rate in Waterloo, and loan interviewers and clerks, at 1.7 times the U.S. average. Hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks had a location quotient of 1.0 in Waterloo, indicating that this particular occupation’s local and national employment shares were similar.

The statistics in this release are from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey, a cooperative effort between BLS and the State Workforce Agencies (SWAs). BLS funds the survey and provides the procedures and technical support. State Workforce Agencies collect most of the data: in this case, Iowa 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. Full OEWS data tables are available online.

Additional information about the OEWS estimates and methodology are available in the national Technical Notes. The overall national response rate for the six panels, based on the 50 states and the District of Columbia, is 65.8 percent based on establishments and 64.3 percent based on weighted sampled employment. The sample in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls, IA Metropolitan Statistical Area included 1,248 establishments with a response rate of 64 percent.

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 Waterloo-Cedar Falls, IA Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Black Hawk County, Bremer County, and Grundy County.

For more information

Answers to frequently asked questions about the OEWS data, as well as general program documentation, are available on the OEWS website.

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 office and administrative support occupations, Waterloo metropolitan area, May 2023
Occupation (1)EmploymentMean wages ($)
Level (2)Location quotient (3)HourlyAnnual (4)

Office and administrative support occupations

9,0500.921.5044,710

First-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers

5500.628.8259,940

Bill and account collectors

2101.917.9637,360

Billing and posting clerks

1500.621.4644,630

Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks

7300.922.3646,510

Payroll and timekeeping clerks

400.524.9651,910

Tellers

3301.717.7536,910

Court, municipal, and license clerks

1001.122.9647,760

Customer service representatives

1,5601.020.9943,660

Eligibility interviewers, government programs

400.527.2156,600

File clerks

501.121.2644,220

Hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks

1501.013.7828,660

Interviewers, except eligibility and loan

1001.118.3838,240

Library assistants, clerical

400.912.7026,410

Loan interviewers and clerks

2001.721.6845,090

New accounts clerks

803.619.5540,670

Human resources assistants, except payroll and timekeeping

500.822.6847,180

Receptionists and information clerks

2400.415.7332,720

Couriers and messengers

401.116.3634,040

Public safety telecommunicators

300.626.0654,210

Dispatchers, except police, fire, and ambulance

700.626.0154,100

Postal service clerks

501.226.5855,280

Postal service mail carriers

2101.128.2758,790

Postal service mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operators

801.227.1656,490

Production, planning, and expediting clerks

2401.128.4459,150

Shipping, receiving, and inventory clerks

3900.819.4940,540

Executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants

1700.629.9162,220

Legal secretaries and administrative assistants

600.721.9045,560

Medical secretaries and administrative assistants

5801.418.5538,590

Secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical, and executive

7200.721.1644,010

Data entry keyers

500.620.2342,090

Insurance claims and policy processing clerks

600.422.0545,860

Office clerks, general

1,3601.020.3142,250

Office and administrative support workers, all other

500.520.5942,840

Footnotes:
(1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls, IA Metropolitan Statistical Area, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_47940.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.

 

Last Modified Date: Monday, July 15, 2024