Workers in the Lincoln, NE Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $29.32 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 ($55.98), healthcare practitioners and technical ($46.32), and legal ($45.46). Lower paying occupations included personal care and service ($15.76), food preparation and serving related ($16.46), and building and grounds cleaning and maintenance ($17.98). (See table A.)

Occupational groups with the highest employment in the Lincoln area included office and administrative support (11.8 percent), food preparation and serving related (9.1 percent), and sales and related (8.1 percent). Major occupational groups on the lower end of local employment included legal (0.8 percent); life, physical, and social science (1.2 percent); and arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media (1.4 percent).

One occupational group—office and administrative support—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Lincoln had 21,380 jobs in office and administrative support, accounting for 11.8 percent of local area employment, the same as the share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $22.00, compared to the national wage of $24.12.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the office and administrative support group included customer service representatives (2,920), secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical, and executive (2,870), and general office clerks (2,280). 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 $31.25 and $30.73, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks ($15.54) and data entry keyers ($16.91). (Detailed data for the office and administrative support occupations are presented in table 1; for a complete listing of detailed occupations available go to https://data.bls.gov/oes/#/area/0030700.)

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 Lincoln area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in some of the occupations within the office and administrative support group. For instance, insurance claims and policy processing clerks were employed at 2.28 times the national rate in Lincoln, and data entry keyers, at 1.68 times the U.S. average. Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks had a location quotient of 0.99 in Lincoln, 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 Nebraska 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 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 Lincoln, NE Metropolitan Statistical Area included 1,865 establishments with a response rate of 73 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 Lincoln, NE Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Lancaster County and Seward 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, Lincoln metropolitan area, May 2024

Occupation (1)	Employment		Mean wages ($)
	Level (2)	Location quotient (3)	Hourly	Annual (4)
Office and administrative support occupations	21,380	1.00	22.00	45,750
First-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers	1,820	1.04	30.73	63,930
Switchboard operators, including answering service	90	2.11	17.60	36,600
Bill and account collectors	260	1.37	20.79	43,240
Billing and posting clerks	550	1.13	21.71	45,170
Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks	1,680	0.99	22.74	47,290
Payroll and timekeeping clerks	170	0.92	26.86	55,870
Procurement clerks	190	2.75	23.35	48,570
Tellers	660	1.67	17.75	36,930
Court, municipal, and license clerks	100	0.49	27.43	57,060
Customer service representatives	2,920	0.91	19.65	40,880
Eligibility interviewers, government programs	60	0.33	24.92	51,840
File clerks	130	1.36	20.71	43,070
Hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks	280	0.92	15.54	32,320
Interviewers, except eligibility and loan	210	1.16	20.53	42,690
Loan interviewers and clerks	160	0.80	22.88	47,590
New accounts clerks	150	3.31	21.40	44,520
Order clerks	100	1.00	19.00	39,520
Human resources assistants, except payroll and timekeeping	130	1.20	22.20	46,180
Receptionists and information clerks	1,240	1.09	17.37	36,120
Information and record clerks, all other	290	1.74	22.51	46,820
Cargo and freight agents	50	0.45	29.80	61,990
Couriers and messengers	120	1.37	17.12	35,610
Public safety telecommunicators	80	0.66	25.45	52,930
Dispatchers, except police, fire, and ambulance	260	1.03	25.78	53,610
Postal service clerks	70	0.74	27.83	57,890
Postal service mail carriers	300	0.76	30.57	63,590
Postal service mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operators	70	0.52	28.66	59,600
Production, planning, and expediting clerks	240	0.54	27.20	56,580
Shipping, receiving, and inventory clerks	990	0.98	20.01	41,610
Weighers, measurers, checkers, and samplers, recordkeeping	40	0.71	21.88	45,500
Executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants	490	0.89	31.25	64,990
Legal secretaries and administrative assistants	240	1.32	24.14	50,220
Medical secretaries and administrative assistants	830	0.86	21.60	44,920
Secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical, and executive	2,870	1.41	22.03	45,820
Data entry keyers	270	1.68	16.91	35,170
Insurance claims and policy processing clerks	610	2.28	22.80	47,430
Mail clerks and mail machine operators, except postal service	50	0.72	18.73	38,950
Office clerks, general	2,280	0.77	18.58	38,640
Office and administrative support workers, all other	80	0.33	17.90	37,240
Footnotes: (1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Lincoln, NE Metropolitan Statistical Area, see https://data.bls.gov/oes/#/area/0030700. (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.