Workers in the Salt Lake City, UT Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average(mean)hourlywageof$25.33inMay2019,about2percentbelow the nationwide average of $25.72, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Acting Regional Commissioner Susan Mendez noted that, after testing for statistical significance, 15 of the 22 major occupational groups had significantly lower wages than their respective national averages, including life, physical, and social science; arts, design, entertainment, sports,and media; and management. Wages in the local area were higher than their respective national averages in three groups, including health care support, and transportation and material moving.

When compared to the nationwide distribution, Salt Lake City area employment was more highly concentrated in 9 of the 22 occupational groups, including office and administrative support, management, and business and financial operations. Conversely, nine groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including food preparation and serving related, production, and educational instruction and library. (See table A and box note at end of release.)

One occupational group—office and administrative support—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Salt Lake City had 115,430 jobs in office and administrative support, accounting for 15.7 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 13.3-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $18.76, significantly below the national wage of $19.73.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the office and administrative support group included customer service representatives (28,610), general office clerks (14,530), and first-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers (8,510). 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 $26.95 and $26.78, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks ($12.47), and switchboard operators, including answering service ($13.18). (Detailed data for the office and administrative support occupations are presented in table 1; for a complete listing of detailed occupations available go to www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_41620.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 Salt Lake City area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in some of the occupations within the office and administrative support group. For instance, data entry keyers were employed at 3.0 times the national rate in Salt Lake City, and file clerks, at 2.5 times the U.S. average. General office clerks had a location quotient of 1.0 in Salt Lake City, 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 Utah Department of Workforce Services.

Technical Note

The Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) survey is a semiannual survey measuring occupational employment and wage rates for wage and salary workers in nonfarm establishments in the United States. The OES data available from BLS include cross-industry occupational employment and wage estimates for the nation; over 580 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. OES data are available at www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm.

The OES survey is a cooperative effort between BLS and the State Workforce Agencies (SWAs). BLS funds the survey and provides the procedures and technical support, while the State Workforce Agencies collect most of the data. OES estimates are constructed from a sample of about 1.1 million establishments. Each year, two semiannual panels of approximately 180,000 to 200,000 sampled establishments are contacted, one panel in May and the other in November. Responses are obtained by mail, Internet or other electronic means, email, telephone, or personal visit. The May 2019 estimates are based on responses from six semiannual panels collected over a 3-year period: May 2019, November 2018, May 2018, November 2017, May 2017, and November 2016. The unweighted sample employment of 83 million across all six semiannual panels represents approximately 57 percent of total national employment. The overall national response rate for the six panels, based on the 50 states and the District of Columbia, is 71 percent based on establishments and 68 percent based on weighted sampled employment. The sample in the Salt Lake City, UT Metropolitan Statistical Area included 4,444 establishments with a response rate of 75 percent. For more information about OES concepts and methodology, go to www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_tec.htm.

A value that is statistically different from another does not necessarily mean that the difference has economic or practical significance. Statistical significance is concerned with the ability to make confident statements about a universe based on a sample. It is entirely possible that a large difference between two values is not significantly different statistically, while a small difference is, since both the size and heterogeneity of the sample affect the relative error of the data being tested.

The May 2019 OES estimates are the first set of OES estimates to be based in part on survey data collected using the 2018 SOC. These estimates use a hybrid of the 2010 and 2018 SOC systems. More information on the hybrid classification system is available at www.bls.gov/oes/soc_2018.htm.

The May 2019 OES estimates are based on the 2017 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). More information about the 2017 NAICS is available at www.bls.gov/bls/naics.htm.

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 Salt Lake City, UT Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Salt Lake, Summit, and Tooele Counties.

For more information

Answers to frequently asked questions about the OES data are available at www.bls.gov/oes/oes_ques.htm. Detailed information about the OES program is available at www.bls.gov/oes/oes_doc.htm.

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 for office and administrative support occupations, Salt Lake City, UT Metropolitan Statistical Area, May 2019

Occupation (1)	Employment		Mean wages
	Level (2)	Location quotient (3)	Hourly	Annual (4)
Office and administrative support occupations	115,430	1.2	$18.76	$39,020
First-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers	8,510	1.1	26.78	55,710
Switchboard operators, including answering service	300	0.9	13.18	27,410
Telephone operators	50	2.2	19.12	39,780
Bill and account collectors	3,570	3.0	16.77	34,890
Billing and posting clerks	3,660	1.6	18.79	39,080
Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks	6,820	0.9	20.32	42,270
Payroll and timekeeping clerks	690	1.0	25.04	52,090
Procurement clerks	430	1.3	20.19	42,000
Tellers	1,560	0.7	13.42	27,910
Financial clerks, all other	260	1.7	21.08	43,840
Brokerage clerks	210	0.9	(5)	(5)
Court, municipal, and license clerks	390	0.5	20.97	43,610
Credit authorizers, checkers, and clerks	170	1.2	18.54	38,570
Customer service representatives	28,610	2.0	17.68	36,780
Eligibility interviewers, government programs	520	0.7	24.57	51,100
File clerks	1,260	2.5	15.90	33,070
Hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks	1,660	1.2	12.47	25,930
Interviewers, except eligibility and loan	910	1.0	16.55	34,430
Library assistants, clerical	260	0.6	13.67	28,430
Loan interviewers and clerks	1,830	1.8	21.03	43,740
New accounts clerks	30	0.2	19.90	41,400
Order clerks	570	0.8	17.20	35,770
Human resources assistants, except payroll and timekeeping	370	0.6	18.81	39,120
Receptionists and information clerks	4,580	0.9	14.15	29,430
Reservation and transportation ticket agents and travel clerks	3,720	6.0	18.99	39,510
Information and record clerks, all other	450	0.6	20.12	41,850
Cargo and freight agents	600	1.3	20.53	42,690
Couriers and messengers	340	0.9	14.93	31,050
Public safety telecommunicators	380	0.8	19.46	40,480
Dispatchers, except police, fire, and ambulance	1,240	1.3	21.55	44,820
Meter readers, utilities	150	1.0	26.59	55,300
Postal service clerks	200	0.5	24.36	50,670
Postal service mail carriers	1,020	0.6	25.57	53,180
Postal service mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operators	590	1.2	23.73	49,350
Production, planning, and expediting clerks	2,080	1.1	22.98	47,790
Shipping, receiving, and inventory clerks	4,180	1.2	15.94	33,160
Weighers, measurers, checkers, and samplers, recordkeeping	660	2.2	15.77	32,790
Executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants	2,020	0.7	26.95	56,060
Legal secretaries and administrative assistants	900	1.1	22.16	46,100
Medical secretaries and administrative assistants	2,050	0.7	18.23	37,920
Secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical, and executive	8,460	0.8	18.41	38,290
Data entry keyers	2,420	3.0	17.50	36,410
Word processors and typists	170	0.7	14.09	29,300
Desktop publishers	40	0.9	21.12	43,930
Insurance claims and policy processing clerks	600	0.5	20.49	42,610
Mail clerks and mail machine operators, except postal service	530	1.3	15.91	33,090
Office clerks, general	14,530	1.0	16.71	34,760
Office machine operators, except computer	200	0.9	15.16	31,530
Statistical assistants	70	1.5	(5)	(5)
Office and administrative support workers, all other	570	0.6	19.50	40,550
Footnotes: (1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Salt Lake City, UT Metropolitan Statistical Area, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_41620.htm. (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.