Workers in the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $27.01 in May 2020, compared to the nationwide average of $27.07, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Regional Commissioner Michael Hirniak noted that, after testing for statistical significance, wages in the local area were higher than their respective national averages in 4 of the 22 major occupational groups, including transportation and material moving, architecture and engineering, and business and financial operations. Eleven groups had significantly lower wages than their respective national averages, including construction and extraction; arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media; and food preparation and serving related.

When compared to the nationwide distribution, Dallas area employment was more highly concentrated in 7 of the 22 occupational groups, including office and administrative support, computer and mathematical, and transportation and material moving. Thirteen groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including healthcare support, healthcare practitioners and technical, and educational instruction and library. (See table A.)

One occupational group—computer and mathematical—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Dallas had 167,230 jobs in computer and mathematical, accounting for 4.7 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 3.3-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $46.89, compared to the national wage of $46.53.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the computer and mathematical group included software developers and software quality assurance analysts and testers (52,490), computer user support specialists (23,040), and computer systems analysts (21,590). Among the higher-paying jobs in this group were computer and information research scientists and actuaries, with mean hourly wages of $64.54 and $60.50, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were computer user support specialists ($24.78) and web developers and digital interface designers ($38.38). (Detailed data for the computer and mathematical occupations are presented in table 1; for a complete listing of detailed occupations available go to www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_19100.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 Dallas area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in many of the occupations within the computer and mathematical group. For instance, computer programmers were employed at 1.8 times the national rate in Dallas, and computer network architects, also at 1.8 times the U.S. average. Web developers and digital interface designers had a location quotient of 1.0 in Dallas, 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 Texas Workforce Commission.

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 180,000 to 185,000 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 2020 estimates are based on responses from six semiannual panels collected over a 3-year period: May 2020, November 2019, May 2019, November 2018, May 2018, and November 2017. The unweighted sample employment of 83 million across all six semiannual panels represents approximately 56 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 69 percent based on establishments and 66 percent based on weighted sampled employment. The sample in the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area included 10,470 establishments with a response rate of 38 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 Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Collin, Dallas, Denton, Ellis, Hood, Hunt, Johnson, Kaufman, Parker, Rockwall, Somevell, Tarrant and Wise Counties.

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; Federal Relay Service: (800) 877-8339.

 Table 1. Employment and wage data for computer and mathematical occupations, Dallas metropolitan area, May 2020

Occupation (1)	Employment		Mean wages
	Level (2)	Location quotient (3)	Hourly	Annual (4)
Computer and mathematical occupations	167,230	1.4	$46.89	$97,540
Computer systems analysts	21,590	1.5	49.58	103,130
Information security analysts	6,130	1.7	56.48	117,480
Computer and information research scientists	540	0.7	64.54	134,250
Computer network support specialists	7,310	1.5	43.08	89,610
Computer user support specialists	23,040	1.4	24.78	51,550
Computer network architects	7,260	1.8	58.66	122,020
Network and computer systems administrators	12,200	1.4	43.23	89,920
Database administrators and architects	5,070	1.5	50.99	106,050
Computer programmers	8,300	1.8	53.87	112,050
Software developers and software quality assurance analysts and testers	52,490	1.4	53.45	111,180
Web developers and digital interface designers	3,960	1.0	38.38	79,840
Computer occupations, all other	11,850	1.3	45.94	95,550
Actuaries	530	0.9	60.50	125,840
Operations research analysts	4,190	1.7	41.87	87,090
Statisticians	590	0.6	46.09	95,870
Data scientists and mathematical science occupations, all other	2,160	1.4	49.94	103,860
(1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Dallas metropolitan area, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_19100.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.