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News Release Information

25-585-CHI
Monday, May 12, 2025

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

Occupational Employment and Wages in Elkhart-Goshen — May 2024

Workers in the Elkhart-Goshen, IN Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $27.41 in May 2024, compared to the nationwide average of $32.66, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Acting Regional Commissioner Julie Wilson noted that higher paying major occupational groups included management ($63.54) and legal ($57.09). Lower paying occupations included food preparation and serving related ($14.97), personal care and service ($17.19), and building and grounds cleaning and maintenance ($17.97). (See table A.)

Production occupations accounted for 32.7 percent of Elkhart area employment, followed by office and administrative support occupations (9.7 percent) and transportation and material moving occupations (9.0 percent). Major occupational groups on the lower end of local employment included legal (0.3 percent) and life, physical, and social science (0.5 percent).

Table A. Occupational employment and wages by major occupational group, United States and the Elkhart metropolitan area, May 2024
Major occupational group Percent of total employment Mean hourly wage ($)
United States Elkhart United States Elkhart

Total, all occupations

100.0 100.0 32.66 27.41

Management

7.1 4.7 68.15 63.54

Business and financial operations

6.7 3.8 45.04 37.20

Computer and mathematical

3.4 1.2 56.16 39.66

Architecture and engineering

1.7 1.6 49.99 40.90

Life, physical, and social science

0.9 0.5 43.12 33.32

Community and social service

1.7 0.8 30.31 25.42

Legal

0.8 0.3 66.19 57.09

Educational instruction and library

5.8 3.1 31.69 24.49

Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media

1.4 0.6 37.04 26.67

Healthcare practitioners and technical

6.2 3.6 50.59 47.00

Healthcare support

4.8 2.2 19.06 18.98

Protective service

2.4 1.2 29.33 26.18

Food preparation and serving related

8.8 5.8 17.32 14.97

Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance

2.9 1.8 19.01 17.97

Personal care and service

2.0 0.6 18.95 17.19

Sales and related

8.7 7.3 26.00 25.84

Office and administrative support

11.8 9.7 24.12 23.55

Farming, fishing, and forestry

0.3 0.1 20.06 23.07

Construction and extraction

4.1 4.4 30.73 29.52

Installation, maintenance, and repair

3.9 5.0 29.63 29.01

Production

5.7 32.7 24.08 23.96

Transportation and material moving

8.9 9.0 23.44 21.53

One occupational group—production—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Elkhart had 42,100 jobs in production, accounting for 32.7 percent of local area employment, compared to the 5.7-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $23.96, compared to the national wage of $24.08.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the production group included miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators (19,870); first-line supervisors of production and operating workers (2,430); and inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers (1,960). Mean hourly wages among the higher-paying jobs in this group were first-line supervisors of production and operating workers ($35.50), computer numerically controlled tool programmers ($30.09), and tool and die makers ($29.75). At the lower end of the wage scale were laundry and dry-cleaning workers ($14.21) and helpers--production workers ($16.67). (Detailed data for the production occupations are presented in table 1; for a complete listing of detailed occupations available go to https://data.bls.gov/oes/#/area/0021140.)

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 2.00 indicates that an occupation accounts for twice the share of employment in the area than it does nationally. In the Elkhart area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in many of the occupations within the production group. For instance, fiberglass laminators and fabricators were employed at 63.44 times the national rate in Elkhart, and cabinetmakers and bench carpenters, at 21.22 times the U.S. average. Bakers had a location quotient of 0.87 in Elkhart, 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, the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.

Changes to the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) Data

Effective with the May 2024 OEWS news release, the OEWS program has implemented new metropolitan area definitions based on the 2020 decennial census and delineated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Bulletin 23-01. This news release does not include data for Colorado and its areas because of quality concerns with Colorado’s Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) data. See the national OEWS news release for more information.


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 530 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 is 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 65.7 percent based on establishments and 65.9 percent based on weighted sampled employment. The sample in the Elkhart-Goshen, IN Metropolitan Statistical Area included 1,338 establishments with a response rate of 78 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 Elkhart-Goshen, IN Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Elkhart 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 production occupations, Elkhart metropolitan area, May 2024
Occupation (1) Employment Mean wages ($)
Level (2) Location quotient (3) Hourly Annual (4)

Production occupations

42,100 5.78 23.96 49,830

First-line supervisors of production and operating workers

2,430 4.26 35.50 73,830

Electrical, electronic, and electromechanical assemblers, except coil winders, tapers, and finishers

340 1.56 18.92 39,350

Structural metal fabricators and fitters

290 6.58 26.21 54,520

Fiberglass laminators and fabricators

980 63.44 23.55 48,990

Miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators

19,870 16.35 23.84 49,580

Bakers

170 0.87 19.03 39,590

Butchers and meat cutters

90 0.76 18.64 38,760

Meat, poultry, and fish cutters and trimmers

40 0.37 19.27 40,090

Food batchmakers

200 1.39 21.48 44,680

Food cooking machine operators and tenders

(5) (5) 20.40 42,430

Extruding and drawing machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic

310 5.62 21.05 43,780

Rolling machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic

130 7.02 22.63 47,070

Cutting, punching, and press machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic

1,000 6.90 22.32 46,420

Grinding, lapping, polishing, and buffing machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic

350 5.99 22.59 46,990

Lathe and turning machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic

80 4.82 25.65 53,350

Milling and planing machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic

160 13.52 27.17 56,520

Machinists

820 3.28 24.22 50,380

Metal-refining furnace operators and tenders

40 2.25 25.44 52,910

Pourers and casters, metal

40 8.21 24.95 51,900

Foundry mold and coremakers

50 5.03 23.00 47,840

Molding, coremaking, and casting machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic

680 5.28 19.38 40,320

Multiple machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic

160 1.48 23.11 48,070

Tool and die makers

220 4.81 29.75 61,880

Welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers

1,770 5.01 26.97 56,100

Welding, soldering, and brazing machine setters, operators, and tenders

210 7.07 20.34 42,300

Plating machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic

140 5.23 20.01 41,620

Printing press operators

140 1.13 22.09 45,950

Print binding and finishing workers

50 1.79 18.12 37,680

Laundry and dry-cleaning workers

70 0.45 14.21 29,550

Sewing machine operators

490 5.34 19.62 40,820

Upholsterers

260 14.72 20.09 41,800

Textile, apparel, and furnishings workers, all other

50 4.10 18.68 38,850

Cabinetmakers and bench carpenters

1,410 21.22 20.76 43,190

Furniture finishers

340 28.28 26.38 54,880

Sawing machine setters, operators, and tenders, wood

290 7.93 21.77 45,290

Woodworking machine setters, operators, and tenders, except sawing

880 16.74 22.16 46,100

Water and wastewater treatment plant and system operators

50 0.50 27.52 57,240

Chemical equipment operators and tenders

300 2.86 22.91 47,650

Separating, filtering, clarifying, precipitating, and still machine setters, operators, and tenders

30 0.67 20.54 42,720

Crushing, grinding, and polishing machine setters, operators, and tenders

80 3.28 20.91 43,480

Grinding and polishing workers, hand

150 14.69 18.12 37,680

Mixing and blending machine setters, operators, and tenders

290 3.42 24.17 50,280

Cutters and trimmers, hand

80 14.06 18.68 38,850

Cutting and slicing machine setters, operators, and tenders

330 8.23 22.65 47,120

Extruding, forming, pressing, and compacting machine setters, operators, and tenders

300 6.32 21.03 43,740

Inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers

1,960 3.98 22.87 47,580

Packaging and filling machine operators and tenders

400 1.26 19.50 40,560

Painting, coating, and decorating workers

80 11.66 23.40 48,660

Coating, painting, and spraying machine setters, operators, and tenders

1,090 8.17 24.76 51,500

Computer numerically controlled tool operators

680 4.58 23.04 47,920

Computer numerically controlled tool programmers

80 3.36 30.09 62,590

Adhesive bonding machine operators and tenders

160 15.51 19.60 40,760

Cleaning, washing, and metal pickling equipment operators and tenders

40 3.83 21.76 45,270

Molders, shapers, and casters, except metal and plastic

100 3.51 23.47 48,810

Helpers--production workers

270 1.96 16.67 34,670

Production workers, all other

270 1.18 20.19 42,000

Footnotes:
(1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Elkhart-Goshen, IN Metropolitan Statistical Area, see https://data.bls.gov/oes/#/area/0021140.
(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.
(5) Estimate not released.

 

Last Modified Date: Monday, May 12, 2025