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News Release Information

25-731-BOS
Thursday, May 08, 2025

Contacts Technical information: Media contact:
  • (646) 264-3600

Occupational Employment and Wages in Lewiston-Auburn, ME — May 2024

Workers in the Lewiston-Auburn, ME Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $29.09 in May 2024, compared to the nationwide average of $32.66, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Acting Regional Commissioner Mark J. Maggi noted that higher paying major occupational groups included healthcare practitioners and technical ($58.20), management ($55.00), and computer and mathematical ($45.14). Lower paying occupations included personal care and service ($19.03), food preparation and serving related ($19.08), and building and grounds cleaning and maintenance ($19.64). (See table A.)

Occupational groups with the highest employment in the Lewiston area included office and administrative support (12.0 percent), transportation and material moving (10.5 percent), and sales and related (8.5 percent). Major occupational groups on the lower end of local employment included life, physical, and social science (0.4 percent); legal (0.5 percent); and architecture and engineering (0.8 percent).

One occupational group—production—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Lewiston had 3,790 jobs in production, accounting for 7.9 percent of local area employment, compared to the 5.7-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $23.40, compared to the national wage of $24.08.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the production group included first-line supervisors of production and operating workers (270) and bakers (260). Among the higher paying jobs in this group were first-line supervisors of production and operating workers ($34.00) and coating, painting, and spraying machine setters, operators, and tenders ($31.07). (See chart 1.) At the lower end of the wage scale were laundry and dry-cleaning workers ($17.82) and bakers ($17.85). (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/0030340.)

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 Lewiston area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in many of the occupations within the production group. For instance, cutting and slicing machine setters, operators, and tenders were employed at 6.63 times the national rate in Lewiston, and woodworking machine setters, operators, and tenders, except sawing, at 3.39 times the U.S. average. Inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers had a location quotient of 0.99 in Lewiston, 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 Maine Department of Labor.

Table A. Occupational employment and wages by major occupational group, United States and the Lewiston metropolitan area, May 2024
Major occupational groupPercent of total employmentAverage hourly wage ($)
United StatesLewistonUnited StatesLewiston

All occupations

100.0100.032.6629.09

Management occupations

7.15.668.1555.00

Business and financial operations occupations

6.74.045.0436.60

Computer and mathematical occupations

3.41.656.1645.14

Architecture and engineering occupations

1.70.849.9942.06

Life, physical, and social science occupations

0.90.443.1238.87

Community and social service occupations

1.72.630.3126.78

Legal occupations

0.80.566.1942.04

Educational instruction and library occupations

5.86.531.6927.63

Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations

1.41.537.0424.37

Healthcare practitioners and technical occupations

6.27.250.5958.20

Healthcare support occupations

4.86.619.0620.48

Protective service occupations

2.41.829.3326.63

Food preparation and serving related occupations

8.88.017.3219.08

Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations

2.92.719.0119.64

Personal care and service occupations

2.02.118.9519.03

Sales and related occupations

8.78.526.0023.06

Office and administrative support occupations

11.812.024.1223.66

Farming, fishing, and forestry occupations

0.30.220.0622.89

Construction and extraction occupations

4.15.030.7328.72

Installation, maintenance, and repair occupations

3.94.329.6329.45

Production occupations

5.77.924.0823.40

Transportation and material moving occupations

8.910.523.4423.47
Changes to the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) Data

Effective with the May 2024 OEWS news release, the OEWS program has implemented new metropolitan area definitions based on the 2020 decennial census and delineated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Bulletin 23-01. See the national OEWS news release for more information.


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 Lewiston-Auburn, ME Metropolitan Statistical Area included 894 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 Lewiston-Auburn, ME Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Androscoggin 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 production occupations, Lewiston metropolitan area, May 2024
Occupation (1)EmploymentMean wages ($)
Level (2)Location quotient (3)HourlyAnnual (4)

Production occupations

3,7901.3923.4048,670

First-line supervisors of production and operating workers

2701.2734.0070,720

Miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators

1200.2620.8343,320

Bakers

2603.6017.8537,120

Butchers and meat cutters

400.8122.0545,870

Food batchmakers

801.5218.5538,590

Cutting, punching, and press machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic

601.0126.1554,390

Machinists

900.9626.6755,480

Multiple machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic

802.0119.7541,070

Welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers

1000.7825.0452,090

Printing press operators

901.9922.6947,190

Laundry and dry-cleaning workers

400.6017.8237,070

Sewing machine operators

2206.5420.5442,720

Shoe machine operators and tenders

9086.5219.9341,460

Textile winding, twisting, and drawing out machine setters, operators, and tenders

8012.7118.8639,220

Cabinetmakers and bench carpenters

1004.0021.9345,620

Sawing machine setters, operators, and tenders, wood

906.9718.6538,800

Woodworking machine setters, operators, and tenders, except sawing

703.3919.1939,920

Chemical equipment operators and tenders

400.9726.9556,060

Cutting and slicing machine setters, operators, and tenders

1006.6325.5153,060

Inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers

1800.9924.0249,960

Coating, painting, and spraying machine setters, operators, and tenders

400.7331.0764,630

Helpers--production workers

801.4620.2442,100

Production workers, all other

1401.6618.7138,910

Footnotes:
(1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Lewiston-Auburn, ME Metropolitan Statistical Area, see https://data.bls.gov/oes/#/area/0030340.
(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.

 

Last Modified Date: Thursday, May 08, 2025