Workers in the Fort Smith, AR-OK Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $19.51 in May 2020, about 28 percent below the nationwide average of $27.07, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Regional Commissioner Michael Hirniak noted that, after testing for statistical significance, 21 of the 22 occupational groups had average wages in the local area that were significantly lower than their respective national averages, including legal, management, 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 sales and related. Twelve groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including business and financial operations, computer and mathematical, and office and administrative support. (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 12,910 jobs in production, accounting for 12.5 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 6.1-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $16.80, significantly below the national wage of $20.08.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the production group included meat, poultry, and fish cutters and trimmers (2,680), miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators (970), 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 electrical, electronic, and electromechanical assemblers, except coil winders, tapers, and finishers, with mean hourly wages of $25.28 and $23.13, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were laundry and dry-cleaning workers ($11.13) and bakers ($11.85). (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 24.5 times the national rate in Fort Smith, and packaging and filling machine operators and tenders, at 3.2 times the U.S. average. Fort Smith’s location quotient for meat, poultry, and fish cutters and trimmers was among the highest in all the published metropolitan areas nationwide for this particular occupation. Miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators had a location quotient of 1.0 in Fort Smith, 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 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 180,000 to 185,000 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 2020 estimates are based on responses from six semiannual panels collected over a 3-year period: May 2020, November 2019, May 2019, November 2018, May 2018, and November 2017. The unweighted sample employment of 83 million across all six semiannual panels represents approximately 56 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 69 percent based on establishments and 66 percent based on weighted sampled employment. The sample in the Fort Smith, AR-OK Metropolitan Statistical Area included 1,596 establishments with a response rate of 77 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 and Sebastian Counties in Arkansas, and Le Flore and Sequoyah Counties in Oklahoma.

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; Federal Relay Service: (800) 877-8339.

 Table 1. Employment and wage data for production occupations, Fort Smith metropolitan area, May 2020

Occupation (1)	Employment		Mean wages
	Level (2)	Location quotient (3)	Hourly	Annual (4)
Production occupations	12,910	2.0	$16.80	$34,950
First-line supervisors of production and operating workers	940	2.1	25.28	52,590
Electrical, electronic, and electromechanical assemblers, except coil winders, tapers, and finishers	410	1.9	23.13	48,100
Structural metal fabricators and fitters	70	1.4	15.93	33,140
Miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators	970	1.0	18.27	38,000
Bakers	120	0.9	11.85	24,660
Butchers and meat cutters	50	0.5	14.81	30,800
Meat, poultry, and fish cutters and trimmers	2,680	24.5	12.08	25,120
Food batchmakers	260	2.3	15.47	32,170
Food processing workers, all other	480	15.5	13.01	27,060
Extruding and drawing machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	80	1.5	13.10	27,240
Cutting, punching, and press machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	120	0.9	16.88	35,110
Machinists	130	0.5	20.57	42,780
Molding, coremaking, and casting machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	220	2.0	14.02	29,170
Welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers	480	1.6	20.24	42,100
Prepress technicians and workers	40	1.9	19.81	41,200
Printing press operators	230	1.9	20.26	42,130
Print binding and finishing workers	100	3.2	16.65	34,640
Laundry and dry-cleaning workers	160	1.2	11.13	23,150
Sewing machine operators	150	1.7	13.27	27,590
Cabinetmakers and bench carpenters	50	0.8	15.93	33,140
Woodworking machine setters, operators, and tenders, except sawing	(5)	(5)	15.91	33,090
Water and wastewater treatment plant and system operators	220	2.5	16.88	35,110
Chemical equipment operators and tenders	(5)	(5)	16.78	34,890
Crushing, grinding, and polishing machine setters, operators, and tenders	(5)	(5)	17.67	36,760
Cutting and slicing machine setters, operators, and tenders	120	3.1	19.92	41,440
Extruding, forming, pressing, and compacting machine setters, operators, and tenders	120	2.6	16.88	35,100
Inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers	670	1.7	16.34	33,990
Ophthalmic laboratory technicians	40	2.0	13.62	28,320
Packaging and filling machine operators and tenders	890	3.2	17.66	36,730
Coating, painting, and spraying machine setters, operators, and tenders	190	1.9	17.63	36,680
Computer numerically controlled tool operators	240	2.2	21.57	44,860
Cleaning, washing, and metal pickling equipment operators and tenders	160	15.1	13.60	28,280
Cooling and freezing equipment operators and tenders	(5)	(5)	16.26	33,830
Paper goods machine setters, operators, and tenders	280	3.8	16.94	35,240
Helpers--production workers	420	2.4	14.75	30,680
Production workers, all other	290	2.0	15.25	31,710
(1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Fort Smith metropolitan 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. (5) Estimate not released.