Workers in the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $40.65 in May 2024, compared to the nationwide average of $32.66, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Regional Commissioner William J. Sibley noted that higher paying major occupational groups included management ($92.78), legal ($86.28), and computer and mathematical ($64.31). Lower paying occupations included healthcare support ($20.23), food preparation and serving related ($21.75), and personal care and service ($22.07). (See table A.)

Occupational groups with the highest employment in the New York area included office and administrative support (12.1 percent), healthcare support (8.6 percent), and sales and related (8.1 percent). Major occupational groups on the lower end of local employment included life, physical, and social science (0.8 percent); architecture and engineering (0.9 percent); and legal (1.4 percent).

One occupational group—healthcare support—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. New York had 801,380 jobs in healthcare support, accounting for 8.6 percent of local area employment, compared to the 4.8-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $20.23, compared to the national wage of $19.06.

  

View Chart Data

Chart 1. Hourly mean wages for selected higher paying healthcare support occupations in the New York metropolitan area, May 2024

Occupation	Wage
All occupations	$40.65
Healthcare support occupations	20.23
Occupational therapy assistants	33.87
Physical therapist assistants	32.93
Massage therapists	31.77
Medical equipment preparers	26.82
Healthcare support workers, all other	25.89

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the healthcare support group included home health and personal care aides (605,590), nursing assistants (77,360), and medical assistants (45,710). Among the higher paying jobs in this group were occupational therapy assistants ($33.87) and physical therapist assistants ($32.93). (See chart 1.) At the lower end of the wage scale were home health and personal care aides ($19.02) and pharmacy aides ($19.45). (Detailed data for the healthcare support occupations are presented in table 1; for a complete listing of detailed occupations available go to https://data.bls.gov/oes/#/area/0035620.)

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 New York area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in some of the occupations within the healthcare support group. For instance, home health and personal care aides were employed at 2.50 times the national rate in New York, and physical therapist aides, at 1.93 times the U.S. average. Medical assistants had a location quotient of 0.95 in New York, 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 New York State Department of Labor, and the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

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 is 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 New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ Metropolitan Statistical Area included 23,419 establishments with a response rate of 67 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 New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Hunterdon, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex, and Union Counties in New Jersey and Bronx, Kings, Nassau, New York, Putnam, Queens, Richmond, Rockland, Suffolk, and Westchester Counties in New York.

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.