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News Release Information

22-1098-NEW
Wednesday, June 01, 2022

Contacts Technical information: Media contact:
  • (617) 565-4141

Occupational Employment and Wages in New York-Newark-Jersey City — May 2021

Workers in the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $35.65 in May 2021, 27 percent above the nationwide average of $28.01, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Chief Regional Economist Martin Kohli noted that, after testing for statistical significance, wages in the local area were higher than their respective national averages in all of the 22 major occupational groups.

When compared to the nationwide distribution, New York area employment was more highly concentrated in 12 of the 22 occupational groups, including healthcare support, educational instruction and library, and business and financial operations. Nine groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including production, food preparation and serving related, and transportation and material moving. (See table A.)

Table A. Occupational employment and wages by major occupational group, United States and the New York metropolitan area, and measures of statistical significance, May 2021
Major occupational groupPercent of total employmentMean hourly wage
United StatesNew YorkUnited StatesNew YorkPercent difference (1)

Total, all occupations

100.0100.0$28.01$35.65*27

Management

6.36.5*59.3180.30*35

Business and financial operations

6.47.9*39.7250.64*27

Computer and mathematical

3.33.4*48.0155.61*16

Architecture and engineering

1.71.0*44.1047.43*8

Life, physical, and social science

0.90.8*38.8145.34*17

Community and social service

1.61.9*25.9430.36*17

Legal

0.81.4*54.3872.57*33

Educational instruction and library

5.87.3*29.8837.49*25

Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media

1.32.2*31.7843.69*37

Healthcare practitioners and technical

6.26.143.8054.08*23

Healthcare support

4.77.4*16.0217.50*9

Protective service

2.43.3*25.6829.98*17

Food preparation and serving related

8.05.9*14.1617.90*26

Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance

2.93.0*16.2320.04*23

Personal care and service

1.82.0*16.1719.46*20

Sales and related

9.49.0*22.1530.99*40

Office and administrative support

13.013.7*20.8824.86*19

Farming, fishing, and forestry

0.3(2)*16.7018.81*13

Construction and extraction

4.23.3*26.8736.14*34

Installation, maintenance, and repair

4.03.4*25.6630.07*17

Production

6.02.8*20.7122.72*10

Transportation and material moving

9.07.8*19.8823.05*16

Footnotes:
(1) A positive percent difference measures how much the mean wage in the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Metropolitan Statistical Area is above the national mean wage, while a negative difference reflects a lower wage.
(2) Indicates a value of less than 0.05 percent.
* The mean hourly wage or percent share of employment is significantly different from the national average of all areas at the 90-percent confidence level.

One occupational group—healthcare support—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. New York had 646,130 jobs in healthcare support, accounting for 7.4 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 4.7-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $17.50, significantly above the national wage of $16.02.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the healthcare support group included home health and personal care aides (450,830), nursing assistants (81,890), and medical assistants (36,500). Among the higher-paying jobs in this group were occupational therapy assistants ($34.99), occupational therapy aides ($32.93), and physical therapist assistants ($32.88). At the lower end of the wage scale were physical therapist aides ($15.80) and home health and personal care aides ($16.11). (Detailed data for the healthcare support occupations are presented in table 1; for a complete listing of detailed occupations available go to www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_35620.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 New York area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in some of the occupations within the healthcare support group. For instance, physical therapist aides and home health and personal care aides were each employed at 2.2 times the national rate in New York. Dental assistants had a location quotient of 1.0 in New York, 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 New York State Department of Labor, the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development, and the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.

Changes to the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) Data

With the May 2021 estimates release, the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program has implemented a new model-based (MB3) estimation method. For more information, see the May 2021 Survey Methods and Reliability Statement at www.bls.gov/oes/methods_21.pdf and the Monthly Labor Review article at www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2019/article/model-based-estimates-for-the-occupational-employment-statistics-program.htm. OEWS estimates for the years 2015-19 were recalculated using the new estimation method and are available as research estimates at www.bls.gov/oes/oes-mb3-methods.htm.

The May 2021 OEWS estimates are also the first estimates based entirely on survey data collected using the 2018 Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system. To improve data quality, the OEWS program aggregates some occupations to the SOC broad occupation level or as OEWS-specific combinations of 2018 SOC detailed occupations.


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 179,000 to 187,000 sampled establishments are contacted, one panel in May and the other in November. Responses are obtained by Internet or other electronic means, mail, email, telephone, or personal visit. The May 2021 estimates are based on responses from six semiannual panels collected over a 3-year period: May 2021, November 2020, May 2020, November 2019, May 2019, and November 2018. The unweighted sampled employment of 82 million across all six semiannual panels represents approximately 62 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 67.2 percent based on establishments and 64.5 percent based on weighted sampled employment. The sample in the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Metropolitan Statistical Area included 26,175 establishments with a response rate of 72 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 New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Bergen County, NJ; Essex County, NJ; Hudson County, NJ; Hunterdon County, NJ; Middlesex County, NJ; Monmouth County, NJ; Morris County, NJ; Ocean County, NJ; Passaic County, NJ; Somerset County, NJ; Sussex County, NJ; Union County, NJ; Bronx County, NY; Dutchess County, NY; Kings County, NY; Nassau County, NY; New York County, NY; Orange County, NY; Putnam County, NY; Queens County, NY; Richmond County, NY; Rockland County, NY; Suffolk County, NY; Westchester County, NY; and Pike County, PA.

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; Telecommunications Relay Service: 7-1-1.

Table 1. Employment and wage data for healthcare support occupations, New York metropolitan area, May 2021
Occupation (1)EmploymentMean wages
Level (2)Location quotient (3)HourlyAnnual (4)

Healthcare support occupations

646,1301.6$17.50$36,400

Home health and personal care aides

450,8302.216.1133,500

Nursing assistants

81,8901.020.1741,940

Orderlies

5,2101.918.8539,200

Psychiatric aides

4,2301.821.0443,760

Occupational therapy assistants

1,8500.734.9972,790

Occupational therapy aides

500.232.9368,500

Physical therapist assistants

3,2600.632.8868,380

Physical therapist aides

5,8402.215.8032,860

Massage therapists

5,3101.124.0049,930

Dental assistants

21,3401.021.8345,410

Medical assistants

36,5000.820.3842,390

Medical equipment preparers

4,9001.323.2548,360

Medical transcriptionists

2,8200.817.3736,130

Pharmacy aides

1,9000.716.9935,340

Veterinary assistants and laboratory animal caretakers

3,8000.618.0137,460

Phlebotomists

9,2401.121.3844,470

Healthcare support workers, all other

7,1701.119.9241,430

Footnotes:
(1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Metropolitan Statistical Area, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_35620.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.

 

Last Modified Date: Wednesday, June 01, 2022