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News Release Information

17-826-DAL
Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Contacts Technical information: Media contact:
  • (972) 850-4800

Occupational Employment and Wages in San Antonio–New Braunfels, May 2016

Workers in the San Antonio-New Braunfels Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $21.74 in May 2016, about 9 percent below the nationwide average of $23.86, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Assistant Commissioner for Regional Operations Stanley W. Suchman noted that, after testing for statistical significance, wages in the local area were lower than their respective national averages in 13 of 22 major occupational groups including legal; construction and extraction; and personal care and service. No major occupational group in the local area had wages that were higher than their respective national averages.

When compared to the nationwide distribution, local employment was more highly concentrated in 5 of the 22 occupational groups, including office and administrative support; food preparation and serving related; and personal care and service. Conversely, nine groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including production; management; and transportation and material moving. (See table A and box note at end of release.)

Table A. Occupational employment and wages by major occupational group, United States and the San Antonio-New Braunfels Metropolitan Statistical Area, and measures of statistical significance, May 2016
Major occupational groupPercent of total employmentMean hourly wage
United StatesSan Antonio-New BraunfelsUnited StatesSan Antonio-New BraunfelsPercent difference (1)

Total, all occupations

100.0100.0$23.86$21.74*-9

Management

5.13.6*56.7455.66-2

Business and financial operations

5.25.6*36.0934.99*-3

Computer and mathematical

3.02.942.2541.23-2

Architecture and engineering

1.81.3*40.5336.79*-9

Life, physical, and social science

0.80.5*35.0635.401

Community and social service

1.41.2*22.6921.09-7

Legal

0.80.750.9540.91*-20

Education, training, and library

6.26.326.2124.99-5

Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media

1.41.2*28.0723.07*-18

Healthcare practitioners and technical

5.96.338.0636.70-4

Healthcare support

2.92.814.6514.751

Protective service

2.42.522.0320.19-8

Food preparation and serving related

9.210.9*11.4710.78*-6

Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance

3.22.9*13.4711.67*-13

Personal care and service

3.24.3*12.7410.46*-18

Sales and related

10.411.0*19.5018.32*-6

Office and administrative support

15.717.9*17.9117.14*-4

Farming, fishing, and forestry

0.30.1*13.3711.79*-12

Construction and extraction

4.04.023.5119.28*-18

Installation, maintenance, and repair

3.94.022.4520.35*-9

Production

6.54.2*17.8817.14-4

Transportation and material moving

6.95.7*17.3416.08*-7

Footnotes:
(1) A positive percent difference measures how much the mean wage in the San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX 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—office and administrative support—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. San Antonio-New Braunfels had 175,090 jobs in office and administrative support, accounting for 17.9 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 15.7-percent share nationally. However, at $17.14 per hour, the local average wage for this occupational group was about 4 percent below the national wage of $17.91.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the office and administrative support group included customer service representatives (29,400), general office clerks (27,960), and stock clerks and order fillers (13,850). Among the higher-paying jobs were first-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers, as well as executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants, with mean hourly wages of $27.92 and $27.40, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks ($10.66) and receptionists and information clerks ($12.05). (Detailed occupational data for office and administrative support are presented in table 1; for a complete listing of detailed occupations available go to www.bls.gov/oes/2016/may/oes_41700.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 San Antonio area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in some of the occupations within the office and administrative support group. For instance, procurement clerks were employed at 2.6 times the national rate in San Antonio, and loan interviewers and clerks, at 2.1 times the U.S. average. On the other hand, stock clerks and order fillers had a location quotient of 1.0 in San Antonio, 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 Texas Workforce Commission.

Note

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 2016 estimates are based on responses from six semiannual panels collected over a 3-year period: May 2016, November 2015, May 2015, November 2014, May 2014, and November 2013. The overall national response rate for the six panels, based on the 50 states and the District of Columbia, is 73 percent based on establishments and 69 percent based on weighted sampled employment. The unweighted employment of sampled establishments across all six semiannual panels represents approximately 58 percent of total national employment. The sample in the San Antonio-New Braunfels Metropolitan Statistical Area included 4,967 establishments with a response rate of 58 percent. For more information about OES concepts and methodology, go to www.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.tn.htm.

The May 2016 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.

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 San Antonio-New Braunfels Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Atascosa, Bandera, Bexar, Comal, Guadalupe, Kendall, Medina, and Wilson Counties in Texas.

Additional information

OES data are available on our regional web page at www.bls.gov/regions/southwest. 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, San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area, May 2016
Occupation (1)EmploymentMean wages
Level (2)Location
quotient (3)
HourlyAnnual (4)

Office and administrative support occupations

175,0901.1$17.14$35,650

First-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers

10,1501.027.9258,060

Switchboard operators, including answering service

7301.211.5023,920

Bill and account collectors

2,6401.317.3836,150

Billing and posting clerks

4,3501.316.5734,470

Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks

10,8001.018.5938,670

Payroll and timekeeping clerks

1,2601.118.2437,930

Procurement clerks

1,2902.621.3344,370

Tellers

3,5801.013.3027,660

Financial clerks, all other

2200.918.2237,900

Brokerage clerks

6901.725.9253,920

Court, municipal, and license clerks

8501.016.6434,610

Credit authorizers, checkers, and clerks

5902.217.5036,400

Customer service representatives

29,4001.615.6232,490

Eligibility interviewers, government programs

8900.916.7434,810

File clerks

1,2501.415.0831,370

Hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks

2,1401.210.6622,160

Interviewers, except eligibility and loan

5800.516.6634,660

Library assistants, clerical

4100.612.4925,980

Loan interviewers and clerks

3,3002.121.0643,810

New accounts clerks

3401.217.0235,410

Order clerks

1,3201.117.5136,420

Human resources assistants, except payroll and timekeeping

1,4601.518.1037,650

Receptionists and information clerks

4,6900.712.0525,060

Reservation and transportation ticket agents and travel clerks

1,6001.617.2035,790

Information and record clerks, all other

1,4701.318.2637,990

Cargo and freight agents

2800.526.1554,390

Couriers and messengers

4600.918.2437,940

Police, fire, and ambulance dispatchers

5800.918.4338,340

Dispatchers, except police, fire, and ambulance

1,2800.918.1737,800

Meter readers, utilities

2100.918.9939,490

Postal service clerks

3200.623.2948,450

Postal service mail carriers

1,8000.824.1950,320

Postal service mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operators

5800.824.4750,890

Production, planning, and expediting clerks

2,8901.319.7040,980

Shipping, receiving, and traffic clerks

4,3100.914.1829,490

Stock clerks and order fillers

13,8501.012.9426,900

Weighers, measurers, checkers, and samplers, recordkeeping

5001.013.8828,870

Executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants

3,2100.727.4057,000

Legal secretaries

1,6001.217.4436,270

Medical secretaries

7,7602.014.7330,650

Secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical, and executive

13,6900.916.2533,800

Computer operators

2900.918.5938,660

Data entry keyers

1,6401.214.6330,420

Word processors and typists

2000.416.0133,300

Desktop publishers

1001.117.4736,330

Insurance claims and policy processing clerks

3,8502.018.3238,100

Mail clerks and mail machine operators, except postal service

5000.813.5428,170

Office clerks, general

27,9601.416.8034,950

Office machine operators, except computer

4501.113.7028,490

Office and administrative support workers, all other

6100.421.0343,750

Footnotes:
(1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_41700.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.
 

 

Last Modified Date: Tuesday, June 13, 2017