Workers in the Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $21.38 in May 2021, about 24 percent below the nationwide average of $28.01, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. 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 20 of the 22 major occupational groups.

When compared to the nationwide distribution, Hickory area employment was more highly concentrated in 4 of the 22 occupational groups, including production and transportation and material moving. Sixteen groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including business and financial operations, computer and mathematical, and management. (See table A.)

One occupational group—production—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Hickory had 28,670 jobs in production, accounting for 19.6 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 6.0-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $18.17, significantly below the national wage of $20.71.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the production group included miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators (4,290), upholsterers (2,850), and sewing machine operators (2,050). Among the higher-paying jobs in this group were power plant operators, with a mean hourly wage of $30.53. At the lower end of the wage scale were production workers' helpers ($11.90); laundry and dry-cleaning workers ($12.11); and textile, garment, and related materials pressers ($12.25). (Detailed data for the production occupations are presented in table 1; for a complete listing of detailed occupations available, go to www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_25860.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 Hickory area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in many of the occupations within the production group. For instance, upholsterers were employed at 97.7 times the national rate in Hickory, and hand cutters and trimmers, at 76.4 times the U.S. average. Welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers had a location quotient of 1.0 in Hickory, 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 North Carolina Department of Commerce.

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 Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area included 1,611 establishments with a response rate of 79 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 Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Alexander County, Burke County, Caldwell County, and Catawba County.

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 production occupations, Hickory metropolitan area, May 2021

Occupation (1)	Employment		Mean wages
	Level (2)	Location quotient (3)	Hourly	Annual (4)
Production occupations	28,670	3.3	$18.17	$37,780
First-line supervisors of production and operating workers	1,680	2.6	27.45	57,100
Electrical, electronic, and electromechanical assemblers, except coil winders, tapers, and finishers	1,300	4.6	20.17	41,950
Miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators	4,290	3.1	16.81	34,970
Bakers	130	0.7	14.17	29,480
Butchers and meat cutters	70	0.5	17.54	36,490
Meat, poultry, and fish cutters and trimmers	380	2.8	15.88	33,030
Food batchmakers	160	1.0	18.67	38,830
Food processing workers, all other	30	0.7	15.39	32,020
Extruding and drawing machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	340	5.5	18.52	38,520
Cutting, punching, and press machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	160	0.9	16.28	33,860
Grinding, lapping, polishing, and buffing machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	130	1.8	17.55	36,510
Lathe and turning machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	50	2.4	(5)	(5)
Machinists	430	1.3	22.02	45,800
Molding, coremaking, and casting machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	1,140	6.7	16.28	33,860
Multiple machine tool setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	110	0.8	18.92	39,350
Tool and die makers	130	1.9	25.76	53,590
Welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers	410	1.0	19.59	40,740
Printing press operators	240	1.6	20.44	42,510
Laundry and dry-cleaning workers	210	1.3	12.11	25,190
Pressers, textile, garment, and related materials	60	2.1	12.25	25,470
Sewing machine operators	2,050	16.9	17.69	36,800
Textile bleaching and dyeing machine operators and tenders	340	52.5	15.54	32,330
Textile cutting machine setters, operators, and tenders	330	26.6	18.00	37,430
Textile knitting and weaving machine setters, operators, and tenders	380	22.5	15.13	31,470
Textile winding, twisting, and drawing out machine setters, operators, and tenders	430	18.9	14.39	29,920
Extruding and forming machine setters, operators, and tenders, synthetic and glass fibers	120	8.5	17.34	36,070
Fabric and apparel patternmakers	170	50.1	23.02	47,880
Upholsterers	2,850	97.7	21.80	45,340
Textile, apparel, and furnishings workers, all other	180	13.9	14.64	30,450
Cabinetmakers and bench carpenters	280	2.9	17.42	36,240
Furniture finishers	380	22.2	16.38	34,080
Sawing machine setters, operators, and tenders, wood	310	6.7	14.74	30,670
Woodworking machine setters, operators, and tenders, except sawing	720	10.3	15.99	33,260
Power plant operators	70	2.2	30.53	63,510
Water and wastewater treatment plant and system operators	120	1.0	18.19	37,830
Chemical equipment operators and tenders	90	0.8	17.42	36,230
Separating, filtering, clarifying, precipitating, and still machine setters, operators, and tenders	40	0.8	18.46	38,390
Crushing, grinding, and polishing machine setters, operators, and tenders	30	0.9	16.47	34,260
Grinding and polishing workers, hand	130	8.1	14.91	31,000
Mixing and blending machine setters, operators, and tenders	430	3.9	17.35	36,090
Cutters and trimmers, hand	630	76.4	21.33	44,360
Cutting and slicing machine setters, operators, and tenders	660	11.4	17.93	37,280
Extruding, forming, pressing, and compacting machine setters, operators, and tenders	120	2.1	19.01	39,540
Inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers	1,660	2.9	17.00	35,360
Packaging and filling machine operators and tenders	640	1.7	13.86	28,830
Painting, coating, and decorating workers	50	4.3	16.65	34,640
Coating, painting, and spraying machine setters, operators, and tenders	350	2.3	19.45	40,460
Computer numerically controlled tool operators	180	1.1	19.08	39,680
Computer numerically controlled tool programmers	30	1.2	26.65	55,420
Adhesive bonding machine operators and tenders	230	17.9	15.38	31,980
Paper goods machine setters, operators, and tenders	470	5.1	18.87	39,240
Helpers--production workers	720	3.4	11.90	24,760
Production workers, all other	630	3.0	15.73	32,710
Footnotes: (1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_25860.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. (5) Estimate not released.