Workers in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $25.61 in May 2021, about 9 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 21 of the 22 major occupational groups, including construction and extraction, computer and mathematical, and healthcare practitioners and technical.

When compared to the nationwide distribution, Tampa area employment was more highly concentrated in 8 of the 22 occupational groups, including office and administrative support, sales and related, and business and financial operations. Eleven groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including production, educational instruction and library, and transportation and material moving. (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. Tampa had 196,170 jobs in office and administrative support, accounting for 15.2 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 13.0-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $19.55, 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 (45,070) and general office clerks (27,130). Among the higher-paying jobs in this group were first-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers, with a mean hourly wage of $29.38. At the lower end of the wage scale were hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks ($13.76) and clerical library assistants ($13.84). (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_45300.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 Tampa area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in some of the occupations within the office and administrative support group. For instance, brokerage clerks were employed at 2.4 times the national rate in Tampa, and insurance claims and policy processing clerks, at 2.0 times the U.S. average. Bill and account collectors had a location quotient of 1.0 in Tampa, 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 Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area included 5,818 establishments with a response rate of 71 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 Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Hernando County, Hillsborough County, Pasco County, and Pinellas 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, Tampa metropolitan area, May 2021

Occupation (1)	Employment		Mean wages
	Level (2)	Location quotient (3)	Hourly	Annual (4)
Office and administrative support occupations	196,170	1.2	$19.55	$40,660
First-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers	15,800	1.2	29.38	61,100
Switchboard operators, including answering service	360	0.8	14.76	30,690
Bill and account collectors	1,980	1.0	18.54	38,560
Billing and posting clerks	4,720	1.2	18.57	38,620
Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks	15,110	1.1	21.08	43,850
Payroll and timekeeping clerks	1,600	1.2	23.59	49,070
Procurement clerks	530	0.9	19.94	41,460
Tellers	2,650	0.8	18.10	37,640
Financial clerks, all other	570	2.1	22.30	46,390
Brokerage clerks	860	2.4	24.83	51,640
Court, municipal, and license clerks	930	0.7	18.99	39,500
Credit authorizers, checkers, and clerks	110	0.7	19.10	39,730
Customer service representatives	45,070	1.8	17.96	37,360
Eligibility interviewers, government programs	860	0.6	17.09	35,550
File clerks	990	1.3	17.21	35,790
Hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks	2,150	1.1	13.76	28,630
Interviewers, except eligibility and loan	1,250	0.8	15.29	31,800
Library assistants, clerical	320	0.4	13.84	28,790
Loan interviewers and clerks	2,730	1.3	22.15	46,080
New accounts clerks	140	0.4	20.84	43,350
Order clerks	1,270	1.0	17.94	37,310
Human resources assistants, except payroll and timekeeping	760	0.8	20.51	42,660
Receptionists and information clerks	11,870	1.3	14.65	30,480
Reservation and transportation ticket agents and travel clerks	900	1.0	23.30	48,470
Information and record clerks, all other	1,400	1.0	19.63	40,840
Cargo and freight agents	690	0.9	24.12	50,160
Couriers and messengers	600	1.0	14.46	30,080
Public safety telecommunicators	570	0.7	19.54	40,640
Dispatchers, except police, fire, and ambulance	2,120	1.2	18.34	38,150
Meter readers, utilities	170	0.8	18.42	38,310
Postal service clerks	640	0.9	26.21	54,510
Postal service mail carriers	3,280	1.1	26.23	54,550
Postal service mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operators	1,000	1.0	24.86	51,720
Production, planning, and expediting clerks	2,580	0.8	24.05	50,020
Shipping, receiving, and inventory clerks	5,790	0.8	16.99	35,340
Weighers, measurers, checkers, and samplers, recordkeeping	380	0.8	17.89	37,210
Executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants	3,210	0.8	26.47	55,060
Legal secretaries and administrative assistants	1,790	1.3	23.97	49,860
Medical secretaries and administrative assistants	8,540	1.4	17.15	35,680
Secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical, and executive	14,510	0.9	18.13	37,710
Data entry keyers	2,220	1.6	15.42	32,070
Word processors and typists	120	0.3	16.95	35,250
Desktop publishers	30	0.5	26.39	54,900
Insurance claims and policy processing clerks	3,990	2.0	20.44	42,520
Mail clerks and mail machine operators, except postal service	500	0.8	15.13	31,470
Office clerks, general	27,130	1.2	18.13	37,700
Office machine operators, except computer	200	0.7	15.99	33,260
Statistical assistants	110	1.9	21.24	44,190
Office and administrative support workers, all other	980	0.7	18.69	38,880
Footnotes: (1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_45300.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.