Workers in the San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $24.87 in May 2021, 11 percent below the nationwide average of $28.01, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Regional Commissioner Michael Hirniak 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 arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media; construction and extraction; and healthcare support.

When compared to the nationwide distribution, San Antonio area employment was more highly concentrated in 6 of the 22 occupational groups, including office and administrative support, food preparation and serving related, and healthcare support. Twelve groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including production, transportation and material moving, and architecture and engineering. (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. San Antonio had 144,920 jobs in office and administrative support, accounting for 14.5 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 13.0-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $19.48, 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 (32,140), general office clerks (17,200), and secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical, and executive (11,710). Among the higher-paying jobs in this group were first-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers and executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants, with mean hourly wages of $29.32 and $29.30, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks ($11.91) and clerical library assistants ($13.83). (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_41700.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 San Antonio area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in some of the occupations within the office and administrative support group. For instance, insurance claims and policy processing clerks were employed at 3.1 times the national rate in San Antonio, and reservation and transportation ticket agents and travel clerks, at 2.0 times the U.S. average. Mail clerks and mail machine operators, except postal service had a location quotient of 1.0 in San Antonio, 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 Texas Workforce Commission.

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 San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area included 4,767 establishments with a response rate of 45 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 San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Atascosa, Bandera, Bexar, Comal, Guadalupe, Kendall, Medina, and Wilson Counties.

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, San Antonio metropolitan area, May 2021

Occupation (1)	Employment		Mean wages
	Level (2)	Location quotient (3)	Hourly	Annual (4)
Office and administrative support occupations	144,920	1.1	$19.48	$40,510
First-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers	11,200	1.1	29.32	60,990
Switchboard operators, including answering service	(5)	(5)	12.33	25,650
Bill and account collectors	2,160	1.4	20.00	41,600
Billing and posting clerks	3,220	1.1	19.21	39,960
Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks	10,360	1.0	20.78	43,230
Payroll and timekeeping clerks	1,140	1.1	20.81	43,280
Procurement clerks	630	1.4	21.00	43,670
Tellers	2,390	0.9	16.57	34,460
Financial clerks, all other	370	1.7	21.06	43,810
Brokerage clerks	530	1.9	23.38	48,630
Court, municipal, and license clerks	490	0.5	20.48	42,600
Credit authorizers, checkers, and clerks	190	1.6	18.82	39,150
Customer service representatives	32,140	1.6	17.78	36,980
Eligibility interviewers, government programs	940	0.9	17.24	35,870
File clerks	730	1.2	17.20	35,770
Hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks	1,740	1.1	11.91	24,770
Interviewers, except eligibility and loan	1,160	1.0	17.56	36,520
Library assistants, clerical	420	0.8	13.83	28,760
Loan interviewers and clerks	2,000	1.2	22.33	46,440
New accounts clerks	410	1.4	18.65	38,790
Order clerks	390	0.4	15.84	32,950
Human resources assistants, except payroll and timekeeping	940	1.3	20.57	42,780
Receptionists and information clerks	7,370	1.1	14.55	30,260
Reservation and transportation ticket agents and travel clerks	1,400	2.0	21.79	45,330
Information and record clerks, all other	2,480	2.3	18.63	38,740
Cargo and freight agents	250	0.4	22.01	45,790
Couriers and messengers	430	0.9	15.68	32,610
Public safety telecommunicators	670	1.0	19.86	41,300
Dispatchers, except police, fire, and ambulance	1,620	1.2	19.71	41,000
Meter readers, utilities	110	0.7	18.73	38,970
Postal service clerks	350	0.6	25.01	52,010
Postal service mail carriers	1,940	0.8	26.42	54,960
Postal service mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operators	640	0.8	24.49	50,940
Production, planning, and expediting clerks	2,120	0.8	23.59	49,070
Shipping, receiving, and inventory clerks	5,180	0.9	17.21	35,800
Weighers, measurers, checkers, and samplers, recordkeeping	320	0.8	17.96	37,370
Executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants	2,410	0.7	29.30	60,950
Legal secretaries and administrative assistants	780	0.7	22.64	47,090
Medical secretaries and administrative assistants	5,970	1.3	17.45	36,300
Secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical, and executive	11,710	0.9	18.62	38,740
Data entry keyers	1,240	1.2	17.20	35,770
Word processors and typists	80	0.3	21.08	43,850
Desktop publishers	(5)	(5)	15.12	31,440
Insurance claims and policy processing clerks	4,750	3.1	21.43	44,570
Mail clerks and mail machine operators, except postal service	490	1.0	16.38	34,070
Office clerks, general	17,200	0.9	17.45	36,290
Office machine operators, except computer	230	1.0	16.07	33,420
Proofreaders and copy markers	30	0.9	20.36	42,350
Office and administrative support workers, all other	750	0.7	20.94	43,550
(1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_41700.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.