Workers in the Jacksonville, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $26.87 in May 2022, 10 percent below the nationwide average of $29.76, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Regional Commissioner Victoria G. Lee noted that, after testing for statistical significance, wages in the local area were lower than their respective national averages in 20 of the 22 major occupational groups, including construction and extraction, computer and mathematical, and management.

When compared to the nationwide distribution, Jacksonville area employment was more highly concentrated in 9 of the 22 occupational groups, including office and administrative support, transportation and material moving, and business and financial operations. Eleven groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including production, educational instruction and library, and healthcare support. (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. Jacksonville had 106,720 jobs in office and administrative support, accounting for 14.8 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 12.6-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $20.74, significantly below the national wage of $21.90.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the office and administrative support group included customer service representatives (22,000) and general office clerks (13,260). Among the higher-paying jobs in this group were first-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers and also executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants, with mean hourly wages of $31.15 and $28.12, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks ($13.98). (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_27260.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 Jacksonville area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in some of the occupations within the office and administrative support group. For instance, bill and account collectors were employed at 2.2 times the national rate in Jacksonville, and medical secretaries and administrative assistants, at 1.8 times the U.S. average. Shipping, receiving, and inventory clerks had a location quotient of 1.0 in Jacksonville, 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 2022 estimates are based on responses from six semiannual panels collected over a 3-year period: May 2022, November 2021, May 2021, November 2020, May 2020, and November 2019. The unweighted sampled employment of 80 million across all six semiannual panels represents approximately 57 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 65.4 percent based on establishments and 62.5 percent based on weighted sampled employment. The sample in the Jacksonville, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area included 4,013 establishments with a response rate of 73 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 Jacksonville, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Baker County, Clay County, Duval County, Nassau County, and St. Johns 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, Jacksonville metropolitan area, May 2022

Occupation (1)	Employment		Mean wages ($)
	Level (2)	Location quotient (3)	Hourly	Annual (4)
Office and administrative support occupations	106,720	1.2	20.74	43,140
First-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers	7,700	1.1	31.15	64,790
Switchboard operators, including answering service	230	1.0	15.28	31,770
Bill and account collectors	2,140	2.2	18.64	38,780
Billing and posting clerks	2,390	1.1	19.91	41,410
Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks	8,110	1.1	22.39	46,580
Payroll and timekeeping clerks	820	1.1	22.06	45,880
Procurement clerks	300	1.0	21.26	44,210
Tellers	1,540	0.9	17.97	37,380
Financial clerks, all other	310	1.5	26.58	55,290
Brokerage clerks	340	1.6	25.76	53,580
Court, municipal, and license clerks	720	0.9	18.76	39,010
Credit authorizers, checkers, and clerks	60	0.8	23.31	48,480
Customer service representatives	22,000	1.6	19.12	39,760
Eligibility interviewers, government programs	1,100	1.5	22.44	46,670
File clerks	380	0.9	17.15	35,670
Hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks	1,390	1.2	13.98	29,090
Interviewers, except eligibility and loan	630	0.8	18.28	38,020
Library assistants, clerical	250	0.7	15.24	31,700
Loan interviewers and clerks	2,060	1.7	24.46	50,870
New accounts clerks	240	1.1	20.71	43,090
Order clerks	700	1.3	17.74	36,900
Human resources assistants, except payroll and timekeeping	460	0.9	21.20	44,090
Receptionists and information clerks	5,580	1.1	15.76	32,780
Reservation and transportation ticket agents and travel clerks	400	0.7	20.16	41,920
Information and record clerks, all other	850	1.2	20.88	43,440
Cargo and freight agents	990	2.2	23.67	49,230
Couriers and messengers	210	0.6	15.54	32,320
Public safety telecommunicators	350	0.8	20.81	43,280
Dispatchers, except police, fire, and ambulance	1,070	1.1	21.78	45,310
Meter readers, utilities	50	0.5	24.90	51,790
Postal service clerks	230	0.6	26.79	55,720
Postal service mail carriers	1,340	0.8	27.22	56,620
Postal service mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operators	1,440	2.5	25.09	52,190
Production, planning, and expediting clerks	1,680	0.9	25.04	52,080
Shipping, receiving, and inventory clerks	3,980	1.0	18.92	39,360
Weighers, measurers, checkers, and samplers, recordkeeping	340	1.3	19.00	39,510
Executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants	1,950	0.8	28.12	58,480
Legal secretaries and administrative assistants	610	0.8	22.80	47,420
Medical secretaries and administrative assistants	6,140	1.8	18.10	37,640
Secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical, and executive	7,590	0.9	19.30	40,130
Data entry keyers	1,010	1.3	18.37	38,200
Word processors and typists	90	0.4	16.33	33,970
Insurance claims and policy processing clerks	1,690	1.5	20.73	43,120
Mail clerks and mail machine operators, except postal service	250	0.8	15.92	33,120
Office clerks, general	13,260	1.1	19.42	40,400
Office machine operators, except computer	150	1.0	19.93	41,460
Office and administrative support workers, all other	1,470	1.7	20.19	42,000
Footnotes: (1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Jacksonville, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_27260.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.