Workers in the Fort Smith, AR-OK Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $20.25 in May 2021, 28 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 all of the 22 major occupational groups, including legal; arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media; and computer and mathematical.   

When compared to the nationwide distribution, Fort Smith area employment was more highly concentrated in 5 of the 22 occupational groups, including production; transportation and material moving; and installation, maintenance, and repair. Fourteen groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including business and financial operations, computer and mathematical, and architecture and engineering. (See table A.)

One occupational group—production—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Fort Smith had 12,320 jobs in production, accounting for 12.0 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 6.0-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $17.63, significantly below the national wage of $20.71.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the production group included meat, poultry, and fish cutters and trimmers (2,310), miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators (1,250), and first-line supervisors of production and operating workers (940). Among the higher-paying jobs in this group were first-line supervisors of production and operating workers and computer numerically controlled tool operators, with mean hourly wages of $26.72 and $22.01, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were meat, poultry, and fish cutters and trimmers ($12.81) and metal and plastic molding, coremaking, and casting machine setters, operators, and tenders ($15.60). (Detailed data for the production occupations are presented in table 1; for a complete listing of detailed occupations available go to www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_22900.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 Fort Smith area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in many of the occupations within the production group. For instance, meat, poultry, and fish cutters and trimmers were employed at 24.0 times the national rate in Fort Smith, and paper goods machine setters, operators, and tenders, at 5.5 times the U.S. average. Miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators had a location quotient of 1.3 in Fort Smith, indicating that this particular occupation’s local employment share was higher than the national share.

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 Arkansas Department of Workforce Services, and the Oklahoma Employment Security 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 Fort Smith, AR-OK Metropolitan Statistical Area included 1,609 establishments with a response rate of 75 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 Fort Smith, AR-OK Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Crawford County, AR; Sebastian County, AR; Le Flore County, OK; and Sequoyah County, OK.

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 production occupations, Fort Smith metropolitan area, May 2021

Occupation (1)	Employment		Mean wages
	Level (2)	Location quotient (3)	Hourly	Annual (4)
Production occupations	12,320	2.0	$17.63	$36,660
First-line supervisors of production and operating workers	940	2.1	26.72	55,580
Coil winders, tapers, and finishers	170	20.9	26.67	55,470
Electrical, electronic, and electromechanical assemblers, except coil winders, tapers, and finishers	460	2.3	24.25	50,440
Miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators	1,250	1.3	16.81	34,960
Bakers	60	0.5	12.53	26,060
Butchers and meat cutters	70	0.7	13.84	28,800
Meat, poultry, and fish cutters and trimmers	2,310	24.0	12.81	26,650
Food batchmakers	270	2.4	16.22	33,740
Extruding and drawing machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	40	1.0	17.07	35,500
Cutting, punching, and press machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	260	2.0	17.36	36,120
Grinding, lapping, polishing, and buffing machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	30	0.6	16.40	34,120
Machinists	170	0.7	20.01	41,610
Molding, coremaking, and casting machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	240	2.0	15.60	32,450
Multiple machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	60	0.6	15.35	31,930
Tool and die makers	40	0.9	18.99	39,500
Welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers	480	1.7	19.76	41,100
Printing press operators	200	1.9	21.11	43,900
Print binding and finishing workers	50	1.8	14.83	30,840
Laundry and dry-cleaning workers	180	1.6	11.84	24,630
Sewing machine operators	110	1.3	13.73	28,560
Cabinetmakers and bench carpenters	70	1.0	15.70	32,660
Sawing machine setters, operators, and tenders, wood	110	3.5	13.57	28,230
Woodworking machine setters, operators, and tenders, except sawing	110	2.2	15.01	31,220
Water and wastewater treatment plant and system operators	160	1.8	18.05	37,550
Chemical equipment operators and tenders	50	0.6	21.06	43,810
Crushing, grinding, and polishing machine setters, operators, and tenders	60	2.6	15.77	32,810
Mixing and blending machine setters, operators, and tenders	90	1.1	18.63	38,740
Cutting and slicing machine setters, operators, and tenders	170	4.2	20.78	43,220
Extruding, forming, pressing, and compacting machine setters, operators, and tenders	60	1.5	15.76	32,780
Inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers	640	1.6	17.47	36,330
Packaging and filling machine operators and tenders	660	2.5	18.71	38,920
Coating, painting, and spraying machine setters, operators, and tenders	130	1.3	19.57	40,710
Computer numerically controlled tool operators	280	2.5	22.01	45,770
Cleaning, washing, and metal pickling equipment operators and tenders	110	11.1	14.42	29,990
Cooling and freezing equipment operators and tenders	30	6.0	18.70	38,890
Paper goods machine setters, operators, and tenders	350	5.5	17.67	36,750
Helpers--production workers	530	3.6	16.06	33,410
Production workers, all other	290	1.9	15.63	32,510
(1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Fort Smith, AR-OK Metropolitan Statistical Area, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_22900.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.