Workers in the Appleton, WI Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $26.20 in May 2022, 12 percent below the nationwide average of $29.76, 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 16 of the 22 major occupational groups, including legal; computer and mathematical; and arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media. Three groups had significantly higher wages than their respective national averages, including construction and extraction and also production.

When compared to the nationwide distribution, Appleton area employment was more highly concentrated in 6 of the 22 occupational groups, including production; construction and extraction; and installation, maintenance, and repair. Sixteen groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including management, computer and mathematical, and healthcare practitioners and technical. (See table A.)

One occupational group—production—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Appleton had 15,460 jobs in production, accounting for 12.9 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 5.9-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $22.44, significantly above the national wage of $21.81.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the production group included miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators (1,700), food batchmakers (1,300), and first-line supervisors of production and operating workers (1,250). Among the higher-paying jobs in this group were first-line supervisors of production and operating workers and tool and die makers, with mean hourly wages of $32.75 and $29.31, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were bakers ($15.04) and laundry and dry-cleaning workers ($15.18). (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_11540.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 Appleton area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in many of the occupations within the production group. For instance, food batchmakers were employed at 9.6 times the national rate in Appleton, and paper goods machine setters, operators, and tenders, at 9.1 times the U.S. average. Laundry and dry-cleaning workers had a location quotient of 0.9 in Appleton, 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 2022 estimates are based on responses from six semiannual panels collected over a 3-year period: May 2022, November 2021, May 2021, November 2020, May 2020, and November 2019. The unweighted sampled employment of 80 million across all six semiannual panels represents approximately 57 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 65.4 percent based on establishments and 62.5 percent based on weighted sampled employment. The sample in the Appleton, WI Metropolitan Statistical Area included 1,504 establishments with a response rate of 67 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 Appleton, WI Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Calumet County and Outagamie 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, Appleton metropolitan area, May 2022

Occupation (1)	Employment		Mean wages
	Level (2)	Location quotient (3)	Hourly	Annual (4)
Production occupations	15,460	2.2	$22.44	$46,670
First-line supervisors of production and operating workers	1,250	2.3	32.75	68,110
Electrical, electronic, and electromechanical assemblers, except coil winders, tapers, and finishers	440	2.0	20.09	41,780
Structural metal fabricators and fitters	130	2.7	24.74	51,470
Miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators	1,700	1.4	19.66	40,890
Bakers	150	0.9	15.04	31,280
Butchers and meat cutters	100	1.0	19.27	40,090
Food batchmakers	1,300	9.6	19.54	40,650
Food cooking machine operators and tenders	200	9.0	20.11	41,840
Extruding and drawing machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	160	3.1	24.33	50,600
Cutting, punching, and press machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	400	2.7	22.03	45,830
Grinding, lapping, polishing, and buffing machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	130	2.1	21.08	43,850
Machinists	330	1.3	23.34	48,540
Molding, coremaking, and casting machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	320	2.4	19.71	41,000
Multiple machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	150	1.4	19.85	41,290
Tool and die makers	100	2.0	29.31	60,970
Welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers	820	2.5	24.99	51,970
Plating machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	50	1.9	17.47	36,340
Prepress technicians and workers	110	5.3	21.11	43,920
Printing press operators	470	3.8	21.66	45,050
Print binding and finishing workers	150	4.9	16.90	35,150
Laundry and dry-cleaning workers	130	0.9	15.18	31,580
Sewing machine operators	110	1.2	20.76	43,180
Sawing machine setters, operators, and tenders, wood	100	2.6	21.22	44,140
Woodworking machine setters, operators, and tenders, except sawing	150	2.9	16.69	34,710
Water and wastewater treatment plant and system operators	70	0.7	28.02	58,280
Chemical equipment operators and tenders	40	0.4	23.80	49,510
Mixing and blending machine setters, operators, and tenders	290	3.3	22.69	47,190
Cutting and slicing machine setters, operators, and tenders	150	3.4	22.54	46,870
Extruding, forming, pressing, and compacting machine setters, operators, and tenders	60	1.3	22.04	45,840
Inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers	810	1.7	21.38	44,460
Packaging and filling machine operators and tenders	950	3.2	20.76	43,180
Coating, painting, and spraying machine setters, operators, and tenders	290	2.4	22.00	45,760
Computer numerically controlled tool operators	740	5.1	26.01	54,090
Computer numerically controlled tool programmers	70	3.1	28.29	58,850
Molders, shapers, and casters, except metal and plastic	40	1.3	20.85	43,360
Paper goods machine setters, operators, and tenders	680	9.1	24.62	51,210
Helpers--production workers	370	2.4	19.84	41,260
Production workers, all other	520	2.5	16.46	34,240
Footnotes: (1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Appleton, WI Metropolitan Statistical Area, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_11540.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.