Workers in the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $24.54 in May 2013, about 10 percent above the nationwide average of $22.33, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Regional Commissioner Charlene Peiffer noted that, after testing for statistical significance, wages in the local area were significantly higher than their respective national averages in 12 of the 22 major occupational groups, including construction and extraction; healthcare practitioners and technical; and transportation and material moving. Four groups had significantly lower wages than their respective national averages, including arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media; architecture and engineering; and business and financial operations.

When compared to the nationwide distribution, local employment was more highly concentrated in 7 of the 22 occupational groups, including management; personal care and service; and computer and mathematical. Conversely, 10 groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including transportation and material moving; construction and extraction; and education, training, and library. (See table A and box note at end of release.)

One occupational group—management—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington had 123,200 jobs in management, accounting for 6.9 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 4.9-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $54.80, measurably above the national wage of $53.15.

With employment of 24,520, general and operations managers was one of the largest occupations within the management group, followed by financial managers (11,290) and sales managers (9,670). Among the higher paying jobs were chief executives and architectural and engineering managers, with mean hourly wages of $89.65 and $67.16, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were education administrators, preschool and childcare center/program ($23.38) and food service managers ($25.40). (Detailed occupational data for management are presented in table 1; for a complete listing of detailed occupations available go to www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_33460.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 Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington Metropolitan Statistical Area, above average concentrations of employment were found in many of the occupations within the management group. For instance, marketing managers were employed at 2.8 times the national rate in Minneapolis, and sales managers, at 2.0 times the U.S. average. On the other hand, general and operations managers had a location quotient of 0.9 in Minneapolis, 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 Minnesota Department of Employment & Economic Development and the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.

Technical Note

The Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) survey is a semiannual mail survey measuring occupational employment and wage rates for wage and salary workers in nonfarm establishments in the United States. Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands are also surveyed, but their data are not included in the national estimates. OES estimates are constructed from a sample of about 1.2 million establishments. Forms are mailed to approximately 200,000 sampled establishments in May and November each year for a 3-year period. May 2013 estimates are based on responses from six semiannual panels collected in May 2013, November 2012, May 2012, November 2011, May 2011, and November 2010. The overall national response rate for the six panels is 75.3 percent based on establishments and 71.6 percent based on employment. The sample in the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington Metropolitan Statistical Area included 8,497 establishments with a response rate of 74 percent. For more information about OES concepts and methodology, go to www.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.tn.htm.

The OES survey provides estimates of employment and hourly and annual wages for wage and salary workers in 22 major occupational groups and 821 detailed occupations for the nation, states, metropolitan statistical areas, metropolitan divisions, and nonmetropolitan areas. In addition, employment and wage estimates for 94 minor groups and 458 broad occupations are available in the national data. OES data by state and metropolitan/nonmetropolitan area are available from www.bls.gov/oes/current/oessrcst.htm and www.bls.gov/oes/current/oessrcma.htm , respectively.

The May 2013 OES estimates are based on the 2010 Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system and the 2012 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). Information about the 2010 SOC is available on the BLS website at www.bls.gov/soc and information about the 2012 NAICS is available at www.bls.gov/bls/naics.htm .

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 Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, Minn. Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Anoka, Carver, Chisago, Dakota, Hennepin, Isanti, Ramsey, Scott, Sherburne, Washington, and Wright Counties of Minnesota, and Pierce and St. Croix Counties of Wisconsin.

Additional information

OES data are available on our regional web page at www.bls.gov/regions/midwest. Answers to frequently asked questions about the OES data are available at www.bls.gov/oes/oes_ques.htm. Detailed technical information about the OES survey is available in our Survey Methods and Reliability Statement on the BLS website at www.bls.gov/oes/2013/may/methods_statement.pdf. Information in this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request – Voice phone: 202-691-5200; Federal Relay Service: 1-800-877-8339.

Table 1. Employment and wage data from the Occupational Employment Statistics survey, by occupation, Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington Metropolitan Statistical Area, May 2013

Occupation (1)	Employment		Mean wages
	Level (2)	Location quotient (3)	Hourly	Annual(4)
Management Occupations	123,200	1.4	$54.80	$113,970
Chief Executives	6,540	2.0	89.65	186,470
General and Operations Managers	24,520	0.9	54.40	113,150
Legislators	330	0.4	(5)	24,530
Advertising and Promotions Managers	830	2.1	53.61	111,510
Marketing Managers	6,460	2.8	61.66	128,260
Sales Managers	9,670	2.0	58.46	121,590
Public Relations and Fundraising Managers	1,140	1.6	52.88	110,000
Administrative Services Managers	5,740	1.6	41.07	85,420
Computer and Information Systems Managers	7,640	1.8	59.33	123,420
Financial Managers	11,290	1.7	60.96	126,800
Industrial Production Managers	3,390	1.5	49.90	103,790
Purchasing Managers	1,870	2.0	53.55	111,390
Transportation, Storage, and Distribution Managers	1,760	1.3	46.08	95,840
Compensation and Benefits Managers	520	2.2	58.23	121,120
Human Resources Managers	2,860	1.9	55.08	114,560
Training and Development Managers	930	2.4	54.57	113,500
Construction Managers	2,300	0.8	44.18	91,890
Education Administrators, Preschool and Childcare Center/Program	890	1.4	23.38	48,620
Education Administrators, Elementary and Secondary School	1,750	0.6	(5)	102,390
Education Administrators, Postsecondary	2,490	1.5	47.13	98,020
Education Administrators, All Other	730	1.7	39.88	82,960
Architectural and Engineering Managers	3,270	1.3	67.16	139,680
Food Service Managers	3,040	1.2	25.40	52,830
Funeral Service Managers	40	0.4	29.98	62,360
Lodging Managers	340	0.8	26.39	54,890
Medical and Health Services Managers	3,740	0.9	47.89	99,620
Natural Sciences Managers	820	1.2	58.25	121,160
Postmasters and Mail Superintendents	100	0.4	35.76	74,380
Property, Real Estate, and Community Association Managers	3,180	1.4	32.36	67,320
Social and Community Service Managers	1,980	1.3	32.88	68,400
Emergency Management Directors	130	1.0	42.05	87,460
Footnotes: (1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_33460.htm. (2) Estimates for detailed occupations do not sum to the totals because the totals include occupations 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.