Workers in the St. Joseph, MO-KS Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $26.28 in May 2024, compared to the nationwide average of $32.66, 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 ($50.83), healthcare practitioners and technical ($40.78), and architecture and engineering ($40.62). Lower paying occupations included food preparation and serving related ($15.20), personal care and service ($15.41), and healthcare support ($17.00). (See table A.)

Occupational groups with the highest employment in the St. Joseph area included production (13.2 percent), office and administrative support (10.9 percent), and transportation and material moving (10.3 percent). Major occupational groups on the lower end of local employment included legal (0.4 percent); life, physical, and social science (0.9 percent); and architecture and engineering (1.1 percent).

One occupational group—production—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. St. Joseph had 7,090 jobs in production, accounting for 13.2 percent of local area employment, compared to the 5.7-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $24.75, compared to the national wage of $24.08.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the production group included packaging and filling machine operators and tenders (800), welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers (560), and first-line supervisors of production and operating workers (540). Among the higher paying jobs in this group were first-line supervisors of production and operating workers ($37.14) and machinists ($28.29). At the lower end of the wage scale were laundry and dry-cleaning workers ($15.80) and bakers ($16.71). (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/0041140.)

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 St. Joseph area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in many of the occupations within the production group. For instance, packaging and filling machine operators and tenders were employed at 5.98 times the national rate in St. Joseph, and mixing and blending machine setters, operators, and tenders, at 3.87 times the U.S. average. Laundry and dry-cleaning workers had a location quotient of 1.04 in St. Joseph, 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 Missouri Department of Economic Development, and the Kansas Department of Labor.

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 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 65.7 percent based on establishments and 65.9 percent based on weighted sampled employment. The sample in the St. Joseph, MO-KS Metropolitan Statistical Area included 896 establishments with a response rate of 71 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 St. Joseph, MO-KS Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Doniphan County, KS; Andrew County, MO; Buchanan County, MO; and DeKalb County, MO.

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, St. Joseph metropolitan area, May 2024

Occupation (1)	Employment		Mean wages ($)
	Level (2)	Location quotient (3)	Hourly	Annual (4)
Production occupations	7,090	2.32	24.75	51,480
First-line supervisors of production and operating workers	540	2.25	37.14	77,260
Miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators	1,080	2.12	24.42	50,790
Bakers	60	0.75	16.71	34,750
Butchers and meat cutters	140	2.79	21.90	45,550
Food and tobacco roasting, baking, and drying machine operators and tenders	40	5.39	22.31	46,410
Food batchmakers	80	1.33	20.20	42,020
Cutting, punching, and press machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	60	0.92	24.82	51,620
Machinists	100	0.91	28.29	58,850
Molding, coremaking, and casting machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	50	0.97	23.40	48,670
Tool and die makers	30	1.67	28.00	58,230
Welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers	560	3.79	27.55	57,300
Laundry and dry-cleaning workers	70	1.04	15.80	32,860
Water and wastewater treatment plant and system operators	60	1.31	26.80	55,750
Chemical equipment operators and tenders	170	3.87	24.81	51,610
Crushing, grinding, and polishing machine setters, operators, and tenders	60	6.06	24.10	50,130
Mixing and blending machine setters, operators, and tenders	140	3.87	24.45	50,860
Cutting and slicing machine setters, operators, and tenders	50	2.88	(5)	(5)
Extruding, forming, pressing, and compacting machine setters, operators, and tenders	40	2.03	19.97	41,530
Inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers	260	1.26	27.32	56,830
Packaging and filling machine operators and tenders	800	5.98	23.24	48,340
Coating, painting, and spraying machine setters, operators, and tenders	110	1.94	25.53	53,090
Computer numerically controlled tool operators	60	0.99	26.78	55,710
Helpers--production workers	160	2.79	22.71	47,240
Production workers, all other	110	1.10	20.06	41,720
(1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the St. Joseph, MO-KS Metropolitan Statistical Area, see https://data.bls.gov/oes/#/area/0041140. (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.