Workers in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $22.15 in May 2017, about 9 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 18 of the 22 major occupational groups, including construction and extraction; arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media; and architecture and engineering. The remaining four groups had average wages similar to those of the nation.

When compared to the nationwide distribution, local employment was more highly concentrated in 7 of the 22 occupational groups, including office and administrative support; sales and related; and business and financial operations. Conversely, 11 groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including production; transportation and material moving; and education, training, and library. (See table A and box note at end of release.)

One occupational group—office and administrative support—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater had 238,250 jobs in office and administrative support occupations, accounting for 18.6 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 15.4-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $16.75, significantly below the national wage of $18.24.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the office and administrative support group included customer service representatives (50,130), general office clerks (26,840), and secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical, and executive (22,060). Among the higher paying jobs in this group were first-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers and executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants, with mean hourly wages of $27.12 and $24.42, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks ($11.16) and stock clerks and order fillers ($12.13). (Detailed data for office and administrative support occupations are presented in table 1; for a complete listing of detailed occupations available, go to www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_45300.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 Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater Metropolitan Statistical Area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in some of the occupations within the office and administrative support group. For instance, customer service representatives were employed at 2.0 times the national rate in Tampa, and data entry keyers, at 1.9 times the U.S. average. On the other hand, general office clerks had a location quotient of 1.0 in Tampa, 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 Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.

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 Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater Metropolitan Statistical Area included 5,831 establishments with a response rate of 73 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 Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Hernando, Hillsborough, Pasco, and Pinellas Counties in Florida.

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, Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater Metropolitan Statistical Area, May 2017

Occupation (1)	Employment		Mean wages
	Level (2)	Location quotient (3)	Hourly	Annual (4)
Office and administrative support occupations	238,250	1.2	$16.75	$34,840
First-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers	16,190	1.2	27.12	56,400
Switchboard operators, including answering service	680	0.9	12.67	26,350
Telephone operators	40	0.6	14.43	30,010
Bill and account collectors	3,110	1.3	16.70	34,740
Billing and posting clerks	5,600	1.3	17.47	36,330
Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks	16,500	1.2	18.19	37,840
Payroll and timekeeping clerks	1,340	1.0	20.16	41,920
Procurement clerks	430	0.7	18.74	38,980
Tellers	4,540	1.0	15.14	31,500
Financial clerks, all other	290	1.0	20.47	42,570
Brokerage clerks	420	0.8	22.14	46,040
Correspondence clerks	40	0.8	17.63	36,670
Court, municipal, and license clerks	920	0.8	17.15	35,670
Credit authorizers, checkers, and clerks	720	2.3	16.90	35,150
Customer service representatives	50,130	2.0	15.39	32,000
Eligibility interviewers, government programs	420	0.3	18.36	38,180
File clerks	2,050	1.9	14.93	31,060
Hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks	2,110	0.9	11.16	23,210
Interviewers, except eligibility and loan	2,360	1.4	16.27	33,840
Library assistants, clerical	600	0.7	14.12	29,370
Loan interviewers and clerks	2,990	1.5	18.78	39,060
Human resources assistants, except payroll and timekeeping	1,180	1.0	16.99	35,340
Receptionists and information clerks	12,770	1.4	13.14	27,320
Reservation and transportation ticket agents and travel clerks	2,380	1.8	17.51	36,430
Information and record clerks, all other	1,890	1.3	17.44	36,280
Cargo and freight agents	610	0.8	21.66	45,050
Couriers and messengers	430	0.6	14.05	29,230
Police, fire, and ambulance dispatchers	720	0.8	18.87	39,240
Dispatchers, except police, fire, and ambulance	1,710	1.0	17.98	37,390
Meter readers, utilities	280	0.9	16.23	33,770
Postal service clerks	680	0.9	24.60	51,170
Postal service mail carriers	3,330	1.1	23.90	49,700
Postal service mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operators	990	1.0	24.77	51,530
Production, planning, and expediting clerks	2,060	0.7	19.28	40,110
Shipping, receiving, and traffic clerks	4,690	0.8	14.77	30,710
Stock clerks and order fillers	19,930	1.1	12.13	25,230
Weighers, measurers, checkers, and samplers, recordkeeping	680	1.1	14.78	30,740
Executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants	4,940	0.9	24.42	50,790
Legal secretaries	1,150	0.7	21.50	44,730
Medical secretaries	3,330	0.6	16.32	33,940
Secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical, and executive	22,060	1.1	16.34	33,980
Computer operators	320	0.9	18.15	37,750
Data entry keyers	3,100	1.9	15.11	31,430
Word processors and typists	330	0.6	15.13	31,470
Desktop publishers	60	0.6	16.98	35,320
Insurance claims and policy processing clerks	4,110	1.7	17.59	36,580
Mail clerks and mail machine operators, except postal service	1,040	1.4	12.90	26,820
Office clerks, general	26,840	1.0	15.13	31,480
Office machine operators, except computer	440	0.9	14.06	29,240
Proofreaders and copy markers	100	1.0	15.58	32,400
Statistical assistants	(5)	(5)	19.99	41,570
Office and administrative support workers, all other	1,330	0.7	18.98	39,470
Footnotes: (1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater Metropolitan Statistical Area, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_45300.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.