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News Release Information

24-2032-KAN
Friday, September 27, 2024

Contacts Technical information: Media contact:
  • (816) 285-7000

Occupational Employment and Wages in Salt Lake City — May 2023

Workers in the Salt Lake City, UT Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $31.67 in May 2023, compared to the nationwide average of $31.48, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Assistant Commissioner for Regional Operations Michael Hirniak noted that higher paying major occupational groups included management ($61.06), computer and mathematical ($51.10), and legal ($50.14). Lower paying occupations included food preparation and serving related ($16.04), building and grounds cleaning and maintenance ($18.02), and personal care and service ($18.60). (See table A.)

Occupational groups with the highest employment in the Salt Lake City area included office and administrative support (15.7 percent), management (8.7 percent), and transportation and material moving (8.3 percent). Major occupational groups on the lower end of local employment included legal (0.9 percent); life, physical, and social science (1.2 percent); and community and social service (1.4 percent).

Table A. Occupational employment and wages by major occupational group, United States and the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, May 2023
Major occupational group Percent of total employment Mean hourly wage ($)
United States Salt Lake City United States Salt Lake City

Total, all occupations

100.0 100.0 31.48 31.67

Management

6.9 8.7 66.23 61.06

Business and financial operations

6.6 8.0 43.55 38.48

Computer and mathematical

3.4 4.7 54.39 51.10

Architecture and engineering

1.7 2.0 47.64 42.51

Life, physical, and social science

0.9 1.2 42.24 36.66

Community and social service

1.6 1.4 28.36 28.91

Legal

0.8 0.9 64.34 50.14

Educational instruction and library

5.8 4.7 31.92 31.03

Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media

1.4 1.7 36.31 30.89

Healthcare practitioners and technical

6.1 5.2 49.07 44.88

Healthcare support

4.7 2.5 18.37 19.73

Protective service

2.3 1.5 27.74 27.33

Food preparation and serving related

8.7 6.7 16.58 16.04

Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance

2.9 2.6 18.43 18.02

Personal care and service

2.0 1.9 18.48 18.60

Sales and related

8.8 7.8 25.62 27.71

Office and administrative support

12.2 15.7 23.05 22.79

Farming, fishing, and forestry

0.3 0.1 19.22 19.96

Construction and extraction

4.1 5.5 29.57 27.80

Installation, maintenance, and repair

3.9 3.6 28.13 28.09

Production

5.8 5.3 22.90 22.86

Transportation and material moving

9.1 8.3 22.45 25.54

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 126,170 jobs in office and administrative support, accounting for 15.7 percent of local area employment, compared to the 12.2-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $22.79, compared to the national wage of $23.05.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the office and administrative support group included customer service representatives (34,170); general office clerks (15,730); and shipping, receiving, and inventory clerks (10,950). Among the higher-paying jobs in this group were first-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers and postal service mail carriers, with mean hourly wages of $32.98 and $29.67, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks ($15.87) and office machine operators, except computer ($17.33). (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, reservation and transportation ticket agents and travel clerks were employed at 3.7 times the national rate in Salt Lake City, and shipping, receiving, and inventory clerks, at 2.5 times the U.S. average. Insurance claims and policy processing 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.

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 Utah Department of Workforce Services.


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 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. Full OEWS data tables are available online.

Additional information about the OEWS estimates and methodology are 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 65.8 percent based on establishments and 64.3 percent based on weighted sampled employment. The sample in the Salt Lake City, UT Metropolitan Statistical Area included 4,615 establishments with a response rate of 75 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 Salt Lake City, UT Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Salt Lake County and Tooele 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, Salt Lake City metropolitan area, May 2023
Occupation (1) Employment Mean wages ($)
Level (2) Location quotient (3) Hourly Annual (4)

Office and administrative support occupations

126,170 1.3 22.79 47,400

First-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers

10,550 1.3 32.98 68,600

Switchboard operators, including answering service

80 0.3 17.81 37,050

Bill and account collectors

2,440 2.4 22.33 46,450

Billing and posting clerks

2,110 0.9 22.52 46,840

Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks

6,800 0.9 24.44 50,830

Payroll and timekeeping clerks

910 1.1 25.51 53,060

Procurement clerks

360 1.1 22.28 46,350

Tellers

2,140 1.2 19.25 40,050

Financial clerks, all other

150 0.6 26.13 54,360

Brokerage clerks

320 1.3 27.07 56,300

Correspondence clerks

40 1.7 19.73 41,050

Court, municipal, and license clerks

400 0.5 23.10 48,040

Credit authorizers, checkers, and clerks

180 2.4 23.27 48,410

Customer service representatives

34,170 2.3 21.05 43,780

Eligibility interviewers, government programs

610 0.8 25.79 53,640

File clerks

420 1.0 21.43 44,570

Hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks

970 0.7 15.87 33,010

Interviewers, except eligibility and loan

660 0.8 19.26 40,060

Library assistants, clerical

180 0.4 17.43 36,260

Loan interviewers and clerks

2,310 2.1 21.77 45,280

New accounts clerks

(5) (5) 19.03 39,580

Order clerks

650 1.3 20.46 42,550

Human resources assistants, except payroll and timekeeping

300 0.6 22.49 46,790

Receptionists and information clerks

4,680 0.9 17.35 36,080

Reservation and transportation ticket agents and travel clerks

2,310 3.7 21.97 45,690

Information and record clerks, all other

280 0.4 23.64 49,170

Cargo and freight agents

520 0.9 24.43 50,810

Couriers and messengers

520 1.4 19.64 40,840

Dispatchers, except police, fire, and ambulance

1,150 1.1 24.14 50,210

Meter readers, utilities

(5) (5) 26.24 54,590

Postal service clerks

200 0.5 28.88 60,060

Postal service mail carriers

950 0.5 29.67 61,710

Postal service mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operators

720 1.2 26.96 56,070

Production, planning, and expediting clerks

2,200 1.1 28.88 60,070

Shipping, receiving, and inventory clerks

10,950 2.5 18.82 39,150

Weighers, measurers, checkers, and samplers, recordkeeping

150 0.6 21.61 44,940

Executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants

3,820 1.5 29.54 61,430

Legal secretaries and administrative assistants

520 0.7 24.73 51,440

Medical secretaries and administrative assistants

2,380 0.6 20.82 43,310

Secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical, and executive

6,700 0.7 21.11 43,900

Data entry keyers

1,530 1.9 23.40 48,670

Word processors and typists

100 0.5 16.23 33,760

Desktop publishers

60 2.0 (5) (5)

Insurance claims and policy processing clerks

1,310 1.0 23.21 48,270

Mail clerks and mail machine operators, except postal service

620 1.8 18.88 39,270

Office clerks, general

15,730 1.2 22.78 47,380

Office machine operators, except computer

190 1.3 17.33 36,050

Office and administrative support workers, all other

1,300 1.4 20.32 42,260

(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.

 

Last Modified Date: Friday, September 27, 2024