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News Release Information

25-550-CHI
Wednesday, May 07, 2025

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

Occupational Employment and Wages in Lincoln, NE — May 2024

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.)

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

Total, all occupations

100.0 100.0 32.66 29.32

Management

7.1 7.7 68.15 55.98

Business and financial operations

6.7 6.2 45.04 35.98

Computer and mathematical

3.4 3.8 56.16 41.55

Architecture and engineering

1.7 1.5 49.99 39.81

Life, physical, and social science

0.9 1.2 43.12 32.81

Community and social service

1.7 1.8 30.31 27.14

Legal

0.8 0.8 66.19 45.46

Educational instruction and library

5.8 6.0 31.69 30.49

Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media

1.4 1.4 37.04 28.44

Healthcare practitioners and technical

6.2 6.4 50.59 46.32

Healthcare support

4.8 3.9 19.06 19.12

Protective service

2.4 1.7 29.33 31.50

Food preparation and serving related

8.8 9.1 17.32 16.46

Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance

2.9 2.7 19.01 17.98

Personal care and service

2.0 3.3 18.95 15.76

Sales and related

8.7 8.1 26.00 23.32

Office and administrative support

11.8 11.8 24.12 22.00

Farming, fishing, and forestry

0.3 0.1 20.06 20.98

Construction and extraction

4.1 4.5 30.73 27.05

Installation, maintenance, and repair

3.9 3.7 29.63 28.02

Production

5.7 6.2 24.08 24.02

Transportation and material moving

8.9 8.0 23.44 26.16

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.

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 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.

 

Last Modified Date: Wednesday, May 07, 2025