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News Release Information

18-674-ATL
Friday, May 25, 2018

Contacts Technical information: Media contact:
  • (404) 893-4220

Occupational Employment and Wages in Montgomery – May 2017

Workers in the Montgomery Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $19.93 in May 2017, about 18 percent below the nationwide average of $24.34, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Regional Commissioner Janet S. Rankin noted that, after testing for statistical significance, wages in the local area were lower than their respective national averages in 19 of the 22 major occupational groups, including arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media; construction and extraction; and sales and related.

When compared to the nationwide distribution, local employment was more highly concentrated in 4 of the 22 occupational groups, including production; and transportation and material moving. Conversely, 12 groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including management; construction and extraction; and education, training, and library. (See table A and box note at end of release.)

Table A. Occupational employment and wages by major occupational group, United States and the Montgomery Metropolitan Statistical Area, and measures of statistical significance, May 2017
Major occupational groupPercent of total employmentMean hourly wage
United StatesMontgomeryUnited StatesMontgomeryPercent difference (1)

Total, all occupations

100.0100.0$24.34$19.93*-18

Management

5.13.7*57.6549.15*-15

Business and financial operations

5.24.7*36.7033.74*-8

Computer and mathematical

3.02.4*43.1837.43*-13

Architecture and engineering

1.81.6*41.4434.04*-18

Life, physical, and social science

0.80.7*35.7628.51*-20

Community and social service

1.51.2*23.1023.482

Legal

0.80.951.6249.13-5

Education, training, and library

6.15.3*26.6721.74*-18

Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media

1.41.0*28.3421.37*-25

Healthcare practitioners and technical

6.05.838.8332.35*-17

Healthcare support

2.92.4*15.0512.81*-15

Protective service

2.43.1*22.6918.05*-20

Food preparation and serving related

9.38.7*11.8810.05*-15

Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance

3.13.5*13.9111.47*-18

Personal care and service

3.63.213.1111.53*-12

Sales and related

10.210.619.5615.66*-20

Office and administrative support

15.415.518.2416.21*-11

Farming, fishing, and forestry

0.30.3*13.8714.253

Construction and extraction

4.03.0*24.0118.20*-24

Installation, maintenance, and repair

3.94.223.0222.05*-4

Production

6.310.4*18.3015.67*-14

Transportation and material moving

7.07.7*17.8214.20*-20

Footnotes:
(1) A positive percent difference measures how much the mean wage in the Montgomery Metropolitan Statistical Area is above the national mean wage, while a negative difference reflects a lower wage.
* The percent share of employment or mean hourly wage for this area is significantly different from the national average of all areas at the 90-percent confidence level.

One occupational group—production—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Montgomery had 17,060 jobs in production occupations, accounting for 10.4 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 6.3-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $15.67, significantly below the national wage of $18.30.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the production group included assemblers and fabricators, all other, including team assemblers (5,260), production workers' helpers (1,620), and inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers (1,490). Among the higher paying jobs in this group were first-line supervisors of production and operating workers; and transportation equipment painters, with mean hourly wages of $25.24 and $20.24, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were laundry and dry-cleaning workers ($9.27) and production workers' helpers ($10.35). (Detailed data for production ocupations are presented in table 1; for a complete listing of detailed occupations available go to www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_33860.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 Montgomery Metropolitan Statistical Area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in many of the occupations within the production group. For instance, production workers' helpers were employed at 3.5 times the national rate in Montgomery, and inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers, at 2.4 times the U.S. average. On the other hand, welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers had a location quotient of 0.8 in Montgomery, 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 Alabama Department of Labor.

Notes on Occupational Employment Statistics Data

With the release of the May 2017 estimates, the OES program has replaced 21 detailed occupations found in the 2010 Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) with 10 new aggregations of those occupations. In addition, selected 4- and 5-digit North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) industries previously published by OES will no longer be published separately. Some of the 4-digit NAICS industries that are no longer being published separately will instead be published as OES-specific industry aggregations. More information about the new occupational and industry aggregations is available at www.bls.gov/oes/changes_2017.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.


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. The OES data available from BLS include cross-industry occupational employment and wage estimates for the nation; over 650 areas, including states and the District of Columbia, metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), metropolitan divisions, nonmetropolitan areas, and territories; national industry-specific estimates at the NAICS sector, 3-, 4-, and selected 5- and 6-digit industry levels; and national estimates by ownership across all industries and for schools and hospitals. OES data are available at www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm.

OES estimates are constructed from a sample of about 1.2 million establishments. Each year, two semiannual panels of approximately 200,000 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 2017 estimates are based on responses from six semiannual panels collected over a 3-year period: May 2017, November 2016, May 2016, November 2015, May 2015, and November 2014. The overall national response rate for the six panels, based on the 50 states and the District of Columbia, is 72 percent based on establishments and 68 percent based on weighted sampled employment. The unweighted sample employment of 82 million across all six semiannual panels represents approximately 58 percent of total national employment. The sample in the Montgomery Metropolitan Statistical Area included 1,729 establishments with a response rate of 72 percent. For more information about OES concepts and methodology, go to www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_tec.htm.

The May 2017 OES estimates are based on the 2010 Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system and the 2017 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 2017 NAICS is available at www.bls.gov/bls/naics.htm.

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 Montgomery Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Autauga, Elmore, Lowndes, and Montgomery Counties in Alabama.

Additional information

OES data are available on our regional web page at www.bls.gov/regions/southeast. 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/current/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: (800) 877-8339.

Table 1. Employment and wage data from the Occupational Employment Statistics survey, by occupation, Montgomery Metropolitan Statistical Area, May 2017
Occupation (1)EmploymentMean wages
Level (2)Location quotient (3)HourlyAnnual (4)

Production occupations

17,0601.6$15.67$32,590

First-line supervisors of production and operating workers

1,0401.525.2452,500

Electrical, electronic, and electromechanical assemblers, except coil winders, tapers, and finishers

1400.515.3131,840

Structural metal fabricators and fitters

1701.916.0133,300

Assemblers and fabricators, all other, including team assemblers

5,2603.515.1831,570

Bakers

1300.615.8232,910

Butchers and meat cutters

1300.914.7530,680

Food processing workers, all other

501.014.4029,950

Computer-controlled machine tool operators, metal and plastic

500.321.1944,070

Rolling machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic

501.616.6934,710

Cutting, punching, and press machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic

1700.816.2633,810

Lathe and turning machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic

601.813.4027,870

Machinists

2700.616.2333,760

Metal-refining furnace operators and tenders

301.618.9839,480

Molding, coremaking, and casting machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic

3201.819.1939,910

Multiple machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic

(5)(5)17.8337,080

Tool and die makers

300.424.8051,590

Welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers

3300.816.8435,020

Welding, soldering, and brazing machine setters, operators, and tenders

2004.516.4834,280

Printing press operators

1400.715.5232,290

Print binding and finishing workers

(5)(5)15.8332,920

Laundry and dry-cleaning workers

3501.49.2719,290

Sewing machine operators

(5)(5)12.9226,870

Tailors, dressmakers, and custom sewers

(5)(5)15.3031,820

Cabinetmakers and bench carpenters

(5)(5)14.3229,790

Sawing machine setters, operators, and tenders, wood

801.3(5)(5)

Woodworking machine setters, operators, and tenders, except sawing

600.713.1327,310

Woodworkers, all other

405.310.7322,320

Power distributors and dispatchers

503.935.1073,000

Water and wastewater treatment plant and system operators

700.620.0041,610

Petroleum pump system operators, refinery operators, and gaugers

(5)(5)20.7143,070

Chemical equipment operators and tenders

1902.1(5)(5)

Grinding and polishing workers, hand

1002.712.0925,150

Mixing and blending machine setters, operators, and tenders

2201.517.8837,200

Cutting and slicing machine setters, operators, and tenders

400.519.6040,770

Extruding, forming, pressing, and compacting machine setters, operators, and tenders

2202.515.8933,060

Inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers

1,4902.414.1829,490

Dental laboratory technicians

801.918.0637,570

Packaging and filling machine operators and tenders

2100.513.6428,380

Coating, painting, and spraying machine setters, operators, and tenders

900.915.2331,680

Painters, transportation equipment

1101.820.2442,100

Painting, coating, and decorating workers

503.411.6124,160

Paper goods machine setters, operators, and tenders

2302.119.6840,930

Helpers--production workers

1,6203.510.3521,530

Production workers, all other

(5)(5)12.9426,910

Footnotes:
(1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Montgomery Metropolitan Statistical Area, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_33860.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.

 

Last Modified Date: Friday, May 25, 2018