Workers in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $26.34 in May 2021, about 6 percent below the nationwide average of $28.01, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Regional Commissioner Janet S. Rankin noted that, after testing for statistical significance, wages in the local area were lower than their respective national averages in 15 of the 22 major occupational groups, including computer and mathematical, architecture and engineering, and management. Two groups had significantly higher wages than their respective national averages: transportation and material moving and educational instruction and library.

When compared to the nationwide distribution, Miami area employment was more highly concentrated in 11 of the 22 occupational groups, including office and administrative support, sales and related, and protective service. Ten groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including production, healthcare support, and educational instruction and library. (See table A.)

One occupational group—office and administrative support—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Miami had 377,530 jobs in office and administrative support, accounting for 15.4 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 13.0-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $19.88, significantly below the national wage of $20.88.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the office and administrative support group included customer service representatives (68,420) and general office clerks (56,120). Among the higher-paying jobs in this group were brokerage clerks and first-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers, with mean hourly wages of $31.31 and $31.01, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were gambling cage workers ($14.45) and hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks ($14.77). (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_33100.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 Miami area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in some of the occupations within the office and administrative support group. For instance, cargo and freight agents were employed at 3.3 times the national rate in Miami, and reservation and transportation ticket agents and travel clerks, at 2.5 times the U.S. average. Billing and posting clerks had a location quotient of 1.0 in Miami, indicating that this particular occupation’s local and national employment shares were similar.

These statistics are from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey, a federal-state cooperative program between BLS and State Workforce Agencies, in this case, the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.

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. OEWS data are available at www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm.

The OEWS 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. OEWS estimates are constructed from a sample of about 1.1 million establishments. Each year, two semiannual panels of approximately 179,000 to 187,000 sampled establishments are contacted, one panel in May and the other in November. Responses are obtained by Internet or other electronic means, mail, email, telephone, or personal visit. The May 2021 estimates are based on responses from six semiannual panels collected over a 3-year period: May 2021, November 2020, May 2020, November 2019, May 2019, and November 2018. The unweighted sampled employment of 82 million across all six semiannual panels represents approximately 62 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 67.2 percent based on establishments and 64.5 percent based on weighted sampled employment. The sample in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area included 9,617 establishments with a response rate of 70 percent. For more information about OEWS 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.

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 Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Broward County, Miami-Dade County, and Palm Beach County.

For more information

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

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, Miami metropolitan area, May 2021

Occupation (1)	Employment		Mean wages
	Level (2)	Location quotient (3)	Hourly	Annual (4)
Office and administrative support occupations	377,530	1.2	$19.88	$41,360
First-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers	33,390	1.3	31.01	64,500
Switchboard operators, including answering service	1,030	1.2	15.05	31,300
Communications equipment operators, all other	40	1.9	19.55	40,670
Bill and account collectors	3,640	1.0	19.79	41,170
Billing and posting clerks	7,460	1.0	19.64	40,850
Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks	28,280	1.1	20.64	42,920
Gambling cage workers	220	1.1	14.45	30,060
Payroll and timekeeping clerks	2,070	0.8	22.81	47,450
Procurement clerks	940	0.9	19.06	39,630
Tellers	5,070	0.8	18.11	37,670
Financial clerks, all other	530	1.0	23.31	48,490
Brokerage clerks	920	1.3	31.31	65,120
Court, municipal, and license clerks	2,860	1.1	22.45	46,690
Credit authorizers, checkers, and clerks	140	0.5	20.66	42,960
Customer service representatives	68,420	1.4	17.75	36,920
Eligibility interviewers, government programs	1,590	0.6	17.38	36,160
File clerks	2,140	1.4	19.13	39,790
Hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks	4,990	1.3	14.77	30,730
Interviewers, except eligibility and loan	1,440	0.5	17.96	37,360
Library assistants, clerical	300	0.2	15.01	31,220
Loan interviewers and clerks	2,710	0.7	20.94	43,560
New accounts clerks	190	0.3	20.13	41,870
Order clerks	3,090	1.3	15.96	33,200
Human resources assistants, except payroll and timekeeping	840	0.5	19.55	40,650
Receptionists and information clerks	24,330	1.4	15.22	31,650
Reservation and transportation ticket agents and travel clerks	4,320	2.5	21.77	45,290
Information and record clerks, all other	2,130	0.8	19.75	41,070
Cargo and freight agents	4,940	3.3	22.63	47,060
Couriers and messengers	1,250	1.1	15.27	31,770
Public safety telecommunicators	1,340	0.8	27.86	57,950
Dispatchers, except police, fire, and ambulance	3,510	1.0	19.58	40,730
Meter readers, utilities	350	0.9	20.12	41,840
Postal service clerks	1,000	0.7	26.04	54,170
Postal service mail carriers	6,000	1.0	26.15	54,390
Postal service mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operators	2,290	1.2	24.08	50,090
Production, planning, and expediting clerks	3,880	0.6	23.26	48,390
Shipping, receiving, and inventory clerks	14,530	1.1	17.26	35,890
Weighers, measurers, checkers, and samplers, recordkeeping	720	0.8	18.37	38,210
Executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants	8,330	1.0	23.88	49,660
Legal secretaries and administrative assistants	5,120	1.9	22.04	45,840
Medical secretaries and administrative assistants	16,710	1.5	18.02	37,470
Secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical, and executive	37,980	1.2	18.95	39,410
Data entry keyers	3,140	1.2	15.96	33,190
Word processors and typists	330	0.5	19.82	41,230
Desktop publishers	(5)	(5)	22.70	47,210
Insurance claims and policy processing clerks	3,340	0.9	20.43	42,490
Mail clerks and mail machine operators, except postal service	1,000	0.8	16.28	33,860
Office clerks, general	56,120	1.3	17.87	37,180
Office machine operators, except computer	330	0.6	17.41	36,210
Proofreaders and copy markers	70	0.7	17.30	35,980
Statistical assistants	100	0.9	(5)	(5)
Office and administrative support workers, all other	1,920	0.8	20.56	42,770
Footnotes: (1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_33100.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.