Workers in the Fort Smith, AR-OK Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $24.18 in May 2025, compared to the nationwide average of $33.54, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Acting Regional Commissioner Jerome Watters noted that higher paying major occupational groups included management ($46.95), legal ($42.17), and architecture and engineering ($41.22). Lower paying occupations included food preparation and serving related ($13.61), personal care and service ($15.45), and healthcare support ($15.73). (See table A.)

Occupational groups with the highest employment shares in the Fort Smith area included production (13.0 percent), office and administrative support (11.5 percent), and transportation and material moving (10.5 percent). Major occupational groups on the lower end of local employment included life, physical, and social science (0.4 percent); legal (0.4 percent); and arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media (0.6 percent).

One occupational group—production—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Fort Smith had 12,400 jobs in production, accounting for 13.0 percent of local area employment, compared to the 5.5-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $21.58, compared to the national wage of $24.81.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the production group included meat, poultry, and fish cutters and trimmers (2,080) and first-line supervisors of production and operating workers (1,100). Among the higher paying jobs in this group were gas plant operators ($39.41) and first-line supervisors of production and operating workers ($31.40). At the lower end of the wage scale were laundry and dry-cleaning workers ($13.51) and bakers ($14.15). (Detailed data for the production occupations are presented in table 1; for a complete listing of detailed occupations available go to data.bls.gov/oes/#/area/0022900/2025.)

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 2.00 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 23.22 times the national rate in Fort Smith, and slaughterers and meat packers at 7.09 times the U.S. average. Separating, filtering, clarifying, precipitating, and still machine setters, operators, and tenders had a location quotient of 1.05 in Fort Smith, indicating that this particular occupation’s local and national employment shares were similar.

The statistics in this release are from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey, a cooperative effort between BLS and the State Workforce Agencies (SWAs). BLS funds the survey and provides the procedures and technical support. State Workforce Agencies collect most of the data: in this case, the Arkansas Division 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 530 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. Full OEWS data tables are available online.

Additional information about the OEWS estimates and methodology is available in the national Technical Notes. The overall national response rate for the six panels, based on the 50 states and the District of Columbia, is 66.2 percent based on establishments and 67.2 percent based on weighted sampled employment. Sample sizes and response rates by metropolitan and nonmetropolitan area are available on the Additional OEWS data sets page.

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; and Sequoyah County, OK.

For more information

Answers to frequently asked questions about the OEWS data, as well as general program documentation, are available on the OEWS website.

If you are deaf, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability, please dial 7-1-1 to access telecommunications relay services.

Table 1. Employment and wage data for production occupations, Fort Smith metropolitan area, May 2025

Occupation (1)	Employment		Mean wages ($)
	Level (2)	Location quotient (3)	Hourly	Annual (4)
Production occupations	12,400	2.36	21.58	44,880
First-line supervisors of production and operating workers	1,100	2.65	31.40	65,320
Structural metal fabricators and fitters	50	1.53	21.55	44,830
Miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators	1,220	1.41	18.80	39,090
Bakers	170	1.20	14.15	29,440
Butchers and meat cutters	100	1.22	17.01	35,380
Meat, poultry, and fish cutters and trimmers	2,080	23.22	17.94	37,320
Slaughterers and meat packers	300	7.09	18.64	38,780
Food batchmakers	250	2.32	20.87	43,410
Food processing workers, all other	230	5.67	20.71	43,070
Extruding and drawing machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	150	4.10	26.37	54,850
Cutting, punching, and press machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	200	1.87	20.42	42,480
Grinding, lapping, polishing, and buffing machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	40	0.87	18.18	37,810
Machinists	230	1.31	25.01	52,030
Molding, coremaking, and casting machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	200	2.21	21.52	44,760
Welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers	400	1.56	22.79	47,400
Welding, soldering, and brazing machine setters, operators, and tenders	40	2.17	21.65	45,030
Tool grinders, filers, and sharpeners	30	9.85	17.74	36,890
Printing press operators	180	2.05	25.89	53,860
Laundry and dry-cleaning workers	130	1.11	13.51	28,090
Sewing machine operators	70	1.09	15.05	31,310
Cabinetmakers and bench carpenters	110	2.32	23.42	48,710
Sawing machine setters, operators, and tenders, wood	70	2.81	17.31	36,000
Woodworking machine setters, operators, and tenders, except sawing	40	0.94	20.29	42,210
Water and wastewater treatment plant and system operators	190	2.38	21.10	43,890
Gas plant operators	50	4.17	39.41	81,970
Chemical equipment operators and tenders	40	0.52	22.47	46,730
Separating, filtering, clarifying, precipitating, and still machine setters, operators, and tenders	40	1.05	22.29	46,370
Mixing and blending machine setters, operators, and tenders	140	2.38	20.05	41,700
Cutting and slicing machine setters, operators, and tenders	240	8.83	23.69	49,280
Extruding, forming, pressing, and compacting machine setters, operators, and tenders	30	0.94	18.58	38,650
Inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers	640	1.73	21.62	44,960
Packaging and filling machine operators and tenders	510	2.19	19.84	41,270
Coating, painting, and spraying machine setters, operators, and tenders	120	1.26	21.91	45,570
Computer numerically controlled tool operators	380	3.65	25.69	53,430
Computer numerically controlled tool programmers	30	1.89	28.31	58,880
Helpers--production workers	550	5.42	18.11	37,670
Production workers, all other	340	2.17	21.34	44,380
(1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Fort Smith, AR-OK Metropolitan Statistical Area, see https://data.bls.gov/oes/#/area/0022900/2025. (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.