Workers in the St. Louis Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $22.26 in May 2014, about 2 percent below the nationwide average of $22.71, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Regional Commissioner Stanley W. Suchman noted that, after testing for statistical significance, wages in the local area were higher than their respective national averages in 3 of the 22 major occupational groups, including construction and extraction, and production. Fourteen groups had significantly lower wages than their respective national averages, including arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media; healthcare practitioners and technical; and legal.

When compared to the nationwide distribution, local employment was more highly concentrated in 6 of the 22 occupational groups, including healthcare practitioners and technical; food preparation and serving related; and computer and mathematical. Conversely, six groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including transportation and material moving; production; and life, physical, and social science. (See table A and box note at end of release.)

One occupational group—computer and mathematical—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. St. Louis had 42,660 jobs in computer and mathematical, accounting for 3.3 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 2.8-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $38.06, significantly below the national wage of $40.37.

Some of the largest detailed occupations within the computer and mathematical group included computer user support specialists (6,920), computer systems analysts (6,300), and applications software developers (6,030). Among the higher paying jobs were systems software developers and computer network architects, with mean hourly wages of $49.46 and $46.47, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were computer user support specialists ($25.37) and web developers ($30.73). (Detailed occupational data for computer and mathematical are presented in table 1; for a complete listing of detailed occupations available go to www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_41180.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 St. Louis Metropolitan Statistical Area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in some of the occupations within the computer and mathematical group. For instance, computer programmers were employed at 1.8 times the national rate in St. Louis, and computer network support specialists, at 1.6 times the U.S. average. On the other hand, applications software developers had a location quotient of 0.9 in St. Louis, indicating that this particular occupation’s local and national employment shares were similar.

These statistics are from the Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) survey, a federal-state cooperative program between BLS and State Workforce Agencies, in this case, the Missouri Department of Economic Development.

Technical Note

The Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) survey is a semiannual mail survey measuring occupational employment and wage rates for wage and salary workers in nonfarm establishments in the United States. Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands are also surveyed, but their data are not included in the national estimates. OES estimates are constructed from a sample of about 1.2 million establishments. Forms are mailed to approximately 200,000 sampled establishments in May and November each year. May 2014 estimates are based on responses from six semiannual panels collected over a 3-year period: May 2014, November 2013, May 2013, November 2012, May 2012, and November 2011. The overall national response rate for the six panels is 74.3 percent based on establishments and 70.5 percent based on weighted sampled employment. The unweighted employment of sampled establishments across all six semiannual panels represents approximately 57.1 percent of total national employment. (Response rates are slightly lower for these estimates due to the federal shutdown in October 2013.) The sample in the St. Louis Metropolitan Statistical Area included 8,088 establishments with a response rate of 66 percent. For more information about OES concepts and methodology, go to www.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.tn.htm.

The OES survey provides estimates of employment and hourly and annual wages for wage and salary workers in 22 major occupational groups and 821 detailed occupations for the nation, states, metropolitan statistical areas, metropolitan divisions, and nonmetropolitan areas. In addition, employment and wage estimates for 94 minor groups and 458 broad occupations are available in the national data. OES data by state and metropolitan/nonmetropolitan area are available from www.bls.gov/oes/current/oessrcst.htm and www.bls.gov/oes/current/oessrcma.htm, respectively.

The May 2014 OES estimates are based on the 2010 Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system and the 2012 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). Information about the 2010 SOC is available on the BLS website at www.bls.gov/soc and information about the 2012 NAICS is available at www.bls.gov/bls/naics.htm.

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 St. Louis, Mo.-Ill. Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Franklin, Jefferson, Lincoln, St. Charles, St. Louis, St. Louis city, Warren, and Washington Counties of Missouri and Bond, Calhoun, Clinton, Jersey, Macoupin, Madison, Monroe, and St. Clair Counties of Illinois.

Additional information

OES data are available on our regional web page at www.bls.gov/regions/mountain-plains. Answers to frequently asked questions about the OES data are available at www.bls.gov/oes/oes_ques.htm. Detailed technical information about the OES survey is available in our Survey Methods and Reliability Statement on the BLS website at www.bls.gov/oes/2014/may/methods_statement.pdf.

Information in this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request. Voice phone: 202-691-5200; Federal Relay Service: 800-877-8339.

Table 1. Employment and wage data from the Occupational Employment Statistics survey, by occupation, St. Louis Metropolitan Statistical Area, May 2014

Occupation (1)	Employment		Mean wages
	Level (2)	Location quotient (3)	Hourly	Annual (4)
Computer and Mathematical Occupations	42,660	1.2	$38.06	$79,170
Computer and Information Research Scientists	80	0.4	47.26	98,290
Computer Systems Analysts	6,300	1.2	43.07	89,580
Information Security Analysts	1,280	1.7	36.50	75,920
Computer Programmers	5,290	1.8	38.71	80,510
Software Developers, Applications	6,030	0.9	44.96	93,510
Software Developers, Systems Software	1,900	0.5	49.46	102,880
Web Developers	800	0.7	30.73	63,920
Database Administrators	1,590	1.5	41.19	85,680
Network and Computer Systems Administrators	4,280	1.2	36.33	75,570
Computer Network Architects	2,140	1.6	46.47	96,650
Computer User Support Specialists	6,920	1.3	25.37	52,770
Computer Network Support Specialists	2,720	1.6	30.96	64,410
Computer Occupations, All Other	2,290	1.1	38.79	80,690
Actuaries	230	1.1	47.23	98,230
Operations Research Analysts	610	0.7	32.63	67,860
Statisticians	190	0.7	38.40	79,870
Footnotes: (1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in St. Louis, MO-IL, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_41180.htm. (2) Estimates for detailed occupations do not sum to the totals because the totals include occupations 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.