In December 2015, 614,906 workers were employed on the Delmarva Peninsula, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Sheila Watkins, the Bureau’s regional commissioner, noted that since December 2014 to December 2015, employment on the peninsula increased 1.9 percent, equal to the advance nationwide. New Castle County, Del., with 293,219 workers, had the highest employment level among the area’s 14 counties and accounted for nearly half of the jobs on the Delmarva Peninsula in December 2015. Employment levels in the remaining Delaware counties, Sussex (72,770) and Kent (65,777), ranked second and third on the peninsula. (See table A.)

 

Table A. Covered employment and wages in the United States and counties on the Delmarva Peninsula, fourth quarter 2015

Area	Employment December 2015		Average weekly wages Fourth Quarter 2015 (1)
	Level	Rank	Level	Rank
United States (2)	141,924,500	--	$1,082	--
Delmarva (3)	614,906	--	964	--
Kent, Del.	65,777	3	858	4
New Castle, Del.	293,219	1	1,198	1
Sussex, Del.	72,770	2	809	8
Caroline, Md.	9,192	11	816	7
Cecil, Md.	30,661	5	907	3
Dorchester, Md.	11,082	10	795	10
Kent, Md.	7,980	12	798	9
Queen Anne's, Md.	14,575	8	765	11
Somerset, Md.	6,905	13	965	2
Talbot, Md.	18,767	7	841	6
Wicomico, Md.	45,707	4	844	5
Worcester, Md.	20,703	6	701	13
Accomack, Va.	12,844	9	721	12
Northampton, Va.	4,724	14	652	14
Footnotes: (1) Average weekly wages were calculated using unrounded data. (2) Totals for the United States do not include data for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. (3) Data for the Delmarva Peninsula were calculated for this release using published employment and wage levels for each county on the peninsula.
Note: Data are preliminary. Covered employment and wages includes workers covered by Unemployment Insurance (UI) and Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees (UCFE) programs.

With the three highest employment levels on the Delmarva Peninsula, Delaware’s counties employed 70 percent of the area’s workers in December 2015. Maryland’s nine counties employed 27 percent of the workers on the peninsula and Virginia’s two counties accounted for the remaining 3 percent. Following the three Delaware counties, two other counties recorded employment over 25,000—Wicomico (45,707) and Cecil (30,661), both in Maryland. Located at the southern tip of the peninsula, Northampton, Va., had the fewest jobs, at 4,724; Maryland’s southernmost county, Somerset, was next with 6,905. Other counties employing fewer than 10,000 workers were Kent, Md. (7,980), and Caroline, Md. (9,192).

Workers on the Delmarva Peninsula earned an average of $1,002 per week in the fourth quarter of 2015—$80 below the national average of $1,082. In addition to employing the most workers on the peninsula, New Castle, Del., also had the highest average weekly wage, at $1,198. New Castle was the only county on the Delmarva Peninsula with an average weekly wage above the national average; the second-highest average wage on the peninsula was $965 per week in Somerset, Md. Northampton, Va., at $652, had the lowest average weekly wage on the Delmarva Peninsula, followed by Worcester, Md., and Accomack, Va., at $701 and $721, respectively. Three other counties on the peninsula had average weekly wages below $800—more than 20 percent below the national average. (See chart 1.)

The County Employment and Wages release for first quarter 2016 is scheduled to be released on Wednesday, September 7, 2016, at 10:00 a.m. (ET).

Technical Note

Average weekly wage data by county are compiled under the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) program, also known as the ES-202 program. The data are derived from summaries of employment and total pay of workers covered by state and federal unemployment insurance (UI) legislation and provided by State Workforce Agencies (SWAs). The 9.7 million employer reports cover 141.9 million full- and part-time workers. The average weekly wage values are calculated by dividing quarterly total wages by the average of the three monthly employment levels of those covered by UI programs. The result is then divided by 13, the number of weeks in a quarter. It is to be noted, therefore, that over-the-year wage changes for geographic areas may reflect shifts in the composition of employment by industry, occupation, and such other factors as hours of work. Thus, wages may vary among counties, metropolitan areas, or states for reasons other than changes in the average wage level. Data for all states, Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), counties, and the nation are available on the BLS Web site at www.bls.gov/cew/; however, data in QCEW press releases have been revised and may not match the data contained on the Bureau’s Web site.

QCEW data are not designed as a time series. QCEW data are simply the sums of individual establishment records reflecting the number of establishments that exist in a county or industry at a point in time. Establishments can move in or out of a county or industry for a number of reasons—some reflecting economic events, others reflecting administrative changes.

The preliminary QCEW data presented in this release may differ from data released by the individual states as well as from the data presented on the BLS Web site. These potential differences result from the states’ continuing receipt, review and editing of UI data over time. On the other hand, differences between data in this release and the data found on the BLS Web site are the result of adjustments made to improve over-the-year comparisons. Specifically, these adjustments account for administrative (noneconomic) changes such as a correction to a previously reported location or industry classification. Adjusting for these administrative changes allows users to more accurately assess changes of an economic nature (such as a firm moving from one county to another or changing its primary economic activity) over a 12-month period. Currently, adjusted data are available only from BLS press releases.

Information in this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request. Voice phone: (202) 691-5200; Federal Relay Service: (800) 877-8339.