Workers in the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $21.41 in May 2010, comparable to the nationwide average of $21.35, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Sheila Watkins, the Bureau’s regional commissioner, noted that, after testing for statistical significance, wages in the local area were significantly lower than their respective national averages in 10 of the 22 major occupational groups, including legal; life, physical, and social science; and architecture and engineering. Four groups had significantly higher wages than their respective national averages, including sales and related and management. (See table A and box note at end of release.)

When compared to the nationwide distribution, local employment was more highly concentrated in 6 of the 22 occupational groups, including business and financial operations, computer and mathematical, and community and social service. Conversely, nine groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including production, food preparation and serving related, and healthcare support.

One occupational group—business and financial operations—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Richmond had 39,330 jobs in business and financial operations, accounting for 6.8 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 4.8-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $31.13, measurably below the national wage of $32.54.

With employment of 6,230, accountants and auditors was the largest occupation within the business and financial operations group, followed by management analysts (5,280). Among the higher paying jobs were management analysts and personal financial advisors, with mean hourly wages of $39.98 and $39.69, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were tax preparers ($15.36) and credit counselors ($19.97). (Detailed occupational data for business and financial operations are presented in table 1; for a complete listing of detailed occupations available go to www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_40060.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 Richmond area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in many of the occupations within the business and financial operations group. For instance, both logisticians and management analysts were employed at more than twice the national rate in Richmond. On the other hand, compliance officers had a location quotient of 1.2 in Richmond, 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 Virginia Employment Commission. The OES survey provides estimates of employment and hourly and annual wages for wage and salary workers in 22 major occupational groups and nearly 800 non-military detailed occupations for the nation, states, metropolitan statistical areas, metropolitan divisions, and nonmetropolitan areas.