Workers in the Beaumont-Port Arthur Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $22.61 in May 2016, about 5 percent below the nationwide average of $23.86, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Assistant Commissioner for Regional Operations Stanley W. Suchman noted that, after testing for statistical significance, wages in the local area were lower than their respective national averages in 12 of the 22 major occupational groups, including computer and mathematical; personal care and service; and education, training, and library. Four groups had significantly higher wages than their respective national averages, including production, as well as architecture and engineering. Wage levels in the remaining occupational groups were not statistically different from their respective national averages.

When compared to the nationwide distribution, Beaumont employment was more highly concentrated in 5 of the 22 occupational groups, including construction and extraction; production; and installation, maintenance, and repair. Conversely, 11 groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including business and financial operations; computer and mathematical; and management. (See table A and box note at end of release.)

Table A. Occupational employment and wages by major occupational group, United States and the Beaumont-Port Arthur, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area, and measures of statistical significance, May 2016

Major occupational group	Percent of total employment		Mean hourly wage
	United States	Beaumont-Port Arthur, TX	United States	Beaumont-Port Arthur, TX	Percent difference (1)
Total, all occupations	100.0	100.0	$23.86	$22.61*	-5
Management	5.1	3.9*	56.74	52.56*	-7
Business and financial operations	5.2	3.0*	36.09	35.68	-1
Computer and mathematical	3.0	0.8*	42.25	31.74*	-25
Architecture and engineering	1.8	2.9*	40.53	47.09*	16
Life, physical, and social science	0.8	1.0	35.06	33.33	-5
Community and social service	1.4	1.0*	22.69	20.60*	-9
Legal	0.8	0.5*	50.95	43.34*	-15
Education, training, and library	6.2	5.5*	26.21	19.83*	-24
Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media	1.4	0.7*	28.07	25.29	-10
Healthcare practitioners and technical	5.9	6.2	38.06	33.78*	-11
Healthcare support	2.9	2.0*	14.65	13.13*	-10
Protective service	2.4	3.0*	22.03	22.65	3
Food preparation and serving related	9.2	9.1	11.47	10.17*	-11
Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance	3.2	2.5*	13.47	10.86*	-19
Personal care and service	3.2	3.6	12.74	9.62*	-24
Sales and related	10.4	10.6	19.50	18.75	-4
Office and administrative support	15.7	14.6*	17.91	16.68*	-7
Farming, fishing, and forestry	0.3	0.2*	13.37	18.27*	37
Construction and extraction	4.0	7.5*	23.51	21.91*	-7
Installation, maintenance, and repair	3.9	5.2*	22.45	24.09*	7
Production	6.5	9.7*	17.88	27.89*	56
Transportation and material moving	6.9	6.4	17.34	18.53	7
Footnotes: (1) A positive percent difference measures how much the mean wage in the Beaumont-Port Arthur, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area is above the national mean wage, while a negative difference reflects a lower wage. * The percent share of employment or mean hourly wage for this area is significantly different from the national average of all areas at the 90-percent confidence level.

One occupational group – production – was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Beaumont-Port Arthur had 15,750 jobs in production, accounting for 9.7 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 6.5-percent share nationally. The local average hourly wage for this occupational group was $27.89, more than 50 percent above the national average of $17.88.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the production group included petroleum pump system operators, refinery operators, and gaugers (2,080); welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers (1,760); and chemical equipment operators and tenders (1,640). Among the higher-paying jobs were first-line supervisors of production and operating workers, as well as petroleum pump system operators, refinery operators, and gaugers, with mean hourly wages of $44.96 and $39.25, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were laundry and dry-cleaning workers ($11.11) and team assemblers ($14.33). (Detailed occupational data for production are presented in table 1; for a complete listing of detailed occupations available go to www.bls.gov/oes/2016/may/oes_13140.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 Beaumont metropolitan area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in many of the occupations within the production group. For instance, local petroleum pump system operators, refinery operators, and gaugers were employed at 43.1 times U.S. average, and chemical equipment operators and tenders, at 19.2 times the national rate. Both location quotients were among the highest in all metropolitan areas for these particular occupations. On the other hand, laundry and dry cleaning workers had a location quotient of 1.0 in Beaumont, indicating that this particular occupation’s local and national employment shares were similar.

These statistics are from the Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) survey, a federal-state cooperative program between BLS and State Workforce Agencies, in this case, the Texas Workforce Commission.

Technical Note

The Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) survey is a semiannual mail survey measuring occupational employment and wage rates for wage and salary workers in nonfarm establishments in the United States. The OES data available from BLS include cross-industry occupational employment and wage estimates for the nation; over 650 areas, including states and the District of Columbia, metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), metropolitan divisions, nonmetropolitan areas, and territories; national industry-specific estimates at the NAICS sector, 3-, 4-, and selected 5- and 6-digit industry levels, and national estimates by ownership across all industries and for schools and hospitals. OES data are available at www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm.

OES estimates are constructed from a sample of about 1.2 million establishments. Each year, two semiannual panels of approximately 200,000 sampled establishments are contacted, one panel in May and the other in November. Responses are obtained by mail, Internet or other electronic means, email, telephone, or personal visit. The May 2016 estimates are based on responses from six semiannual panels collected over a 3-year period: May 2016, November 2015, May 2015, November 2014, May 2014, and November 2013. The overall national response rate for the six panels, based on the 50 states and the District of Columbia, is 73 percent based on establishments and 69 percent based on weighted sampled employment. The unweighted employment of sampled establishments across all six semiannual panels represents approximately 58 percent of total national employment. The sample in the Beaumont-Port Arthur Metropolitan Statistical Area included 1,868 establishments with a response rate of 62 percent. For more information about OES concepts and methodology, go to www.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.tn.htm.

The May 2016 OES estimates are based on the 2010 Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system and the 2012 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). Information about the 2010 SOC is available on the BLS website at www.bls.gov/soc and information about the 2012 NAICS is available at www.bls.gov/bls/naics.htm.

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 Beaumont-Port Arthur Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Hardin, Jefferson, and Orange Counties in Texas.

Additional information

OES data are available on our regional web page at www.bls.gov/regions/southwest. Answers to frequently asked questions about the OES data are available at www.bls.gov/oes/oes_ques.htm. Detailed technical information about the OES survey is available in our Survey Methods and Reliability Statement on the BLS website at www.bls.gov/oes/current/methods_statement.pdf.

Information in this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request . Voice phone: (202) 691-5200; Federal Relay Service: (800) 877-8339.

Table 1. Employment and wage data from the Occupational Employment Statistics survey, by occupation, Beaumont-Port Arthur, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area, May 2016

Occupation (1)	Employment		Mean wages
	Level (2)	Location quotient (3)	Hourly	Annual (4)
Production occupations	15,750	1.5	$27.89	$58,000
First-line supervisors of production and operating workers	1,570	2.2	44.96	93,520
Structural metal fabricators and fitters	260	2.9	20.45	42,540
Team assemblers	460	0.4	14.33	29,820
Assemblers and fabricators, all other	30	0.1	13.77	28,630
Butchers and meat cutters	70	0.5	14.12	29,370
Food batchmakers	80	0.5	14.80	30,780
Computer-controlled machine tool operators, metal and plastic	(5)	(5)	21.27	44,240
Forging machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	(5)	(5)	17.63	36,680
Cutting, punching, and press machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	280	1.3	18.79	39,090
Grinding, lapping, polishing, and buffing machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	30	0.4	15.02	31,240
Machinists	560	1.2	27.38	56,960
Multiple machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	130	1.0	18.67	38,830
Welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers	1,760	4.0	28.23	58,720
Welding, soldering, and brazing machine setters, operators, and tenders	200	3.7	22.46	46,730
Printing press operators	80	0.4	16.49	34,290
Laundry and dry-cleaning workers	240	1.0	11.11	23,120
Pressers, textile, garment, and related materials	(5)	(5)	9.33	19,410
Sewing machine operators	70	0.4	10.90	22,680
Cabinetmakers and bench carpenters	150	1.3	13.19	27,440
Woodworking machine setters, operators, and tenders, except sawing	240	2.7	11.65	24,230
Stationary engineers and boiler operators	30	0.8	22.78	47,390
Water and wastewater treatment plant and system operators	240	1.8	19.01	39,530
Chemical plant and system operators	580	15.1	39.51	82,190
Petroleum pump system operators, refinery operators, and gaugers	2,080	43.1	39.25	81,650
Chemical equipment operators and tenders	1,640	19.2	36.18	75,250
Separating, filtering, clarifying, precipitating, and still machine setters, operators, and tenders	60	1.1	30.64	63,740
Mixing and blending machine setters, operators, and tenders	270	1.8	(5)	(5)
Inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers	720	1.2	25.06	52,130
Dental laboratory technicians	50	1.1	12.41	25,820
Packaging and filling machine operators and tenders	370	0.8	18.44	38,350
Coating, painting, and spraying machine setters, operators, and tenders	(5)	(5)	17.48	36,360
Painters, transportation equipment	80	1.2	27.48	57,170
Painting, coating, and decorating workers	(5)	(5)	12.39	25,770
Paper goods machine setters, operators, and tenders	190	1.8	28.19	58,640
Helpers--production workers	810	1.6	15.32	31,870
Footnotes: (1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Beaumont-Port Arthur, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_13140.htm. (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. (5) Estimate not released.