Workers in the Sioux City, IA-NE-SD Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $26.27 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 ($54.94), legal ($44.74), and healthcare practitioners and technical ($43.25). Lower paying occupations included food preparation and serving related ($15.00), personal care and service ($16.24), and building and grounds cleaning and maintenance ($18.18). (See table A.)

Occupational groups with the highest employment in the Sioux City area included production (13.8 percent), transportation and material moving (12.6 percent), and office and administrative support (9.9 percent). Major occupational groups on the lower end of local employment included legal (0.4 percent); life, physical, and social science (0.7 percent); and architecture and engineering (0.9 percent).

One occupational group—production—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Sioux City had 10,370 jobs in production, accounting for 13.8 percent of local area employment, compared to the 5.7-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $23.22, compared to the national wage of $24.08.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the production group included meat, poultry, and fish cutters and trimmers (1,580), slaughterers and meat packers (1,120), and packaging and filling machine operators and tenders (780). Among the higher paying jobs in this group were first-line supervisors of production and operating workers and water and wastewater treatment plant and system operators, with mean hourly wages of $37.50 and $29.60, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were bakers ($15.17) and laundry and dry-cleaning workers ($15.84). (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/0043580.)

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 Sioux City area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in many of the occupations within the production group. For instance, slaughterers and meat packers were employed at 33.91 times the national rate in Sioux City, and meat, poultry, and fish cutters and trimmers, at 22.92 times the U.S. average. Miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators had a location quotient of 0.65 in Sioux City, 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, the Nebraska Department of Labor, and the South Dakota Department of Labor & Regulation.

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 Sioux City, IA-NE-SD Metropolitan Statistical Area included 1,405 establishments with a response rate of 70 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 Sioux City, IA-NE-SD Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Woodbury County, IA; Dakota County, NE; and Union County, SD.

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, Sioux City metropolitan area, May 2024

Occupation (1)	Employment		Mean wages ($)
	Level (2)	Location quotient (3)	Hourly	Annual (4)
Production occupations	10,370	2.43	23.22	48,300
First-line supervisors of production and operating workers	660	1.97	37.50	77,990
Structural metal fabricators and fitters	70	2.55	21.67	45,060
Miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators	460	0.65	20.22	42,050
Bakers	120	1.04	15.17	31,560
Butchers and meat cutters	310	4.56	18.18	37,820
Meat, poultry, and fish cutters and trimmers	1,580	22.92	21.67	45,080
Slaughterers and meat packers	1,120	33.91	22.64	47,100
Food and tobacco roasting, baking, and drying machine operators and tenders	80	8.22	23.91	49,720
Food batchmakers	350	4.22	20.94	43,560
Food cooking machine operators and tenders	190	14.31	23.36	48,600
Food processing workers, all other	1,270	45.05	21.38	44,480
Cutting, punching, and press machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	40	0.52	22.36	46,500
Machinists	70	0.50	24.83	51,640
Molding, coremaking, and casting machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	130	1.71	18.79	39,090
Multiple machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	120	1.83	23.34	48,540
Welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers	430	2.09	25.35	52,720
Welding, soldering, and brazing machine setters, operators, and tenders	100	5.45	25.53	53,100
Printing press operators	50	0.75	19.29	40,120
Laundry and dry-cleaning workers	140	1.45	15.84	32,960
Sewing machine operators	40	0.82	17.54	36,490
Water and wastewater treatment plant and system operators	70	1.15	29.60	61,570
Separating, filtering, clarifying, precipitating, and still machine setters, operators, and tenders	60	2.14	24.21	50,350
Crushing, grinding, and polishing machine setters, operators, and tenders	70	5.32	26.63	55,390
Mixing and blending machine setters, operators, and tenders	120	2.34	23.68	49,260
Cutting and slicing machine setters, operators, and tenders	90	3.71	22.49	46,770
Extruding, forming, pressing, and compacting machine setters, operators, and tenders	40	1.43	20.54	42,730
Inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers	430	1.49	25.20	52,420
Packaging and filling machine operators and tenders	780	4.15	20.30	42,220
Coating, painting, and spraying machine setters, operators, and tenders	90	1.12	22.74	47,300
Computer numerically controlled tool operators	80	0.94	24.35	50,650
Cooling and freezing equipment operators and tenders	70	20.41	26.16	54,410
Helpers--production workers	130	1.65	22.88	47,590
Production workers, all other	160	1.20	17.51	36,410
Footnotes: (1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Sioux City, IA-NE-SD Metropolitan Statistical Area, see https://data.bls.gov/oes/#/area/0043580. (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.