Occupational Employment and Wages in Waterloo-Cedar Falls — May 2023

Workers in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls, IA Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $26.66 in May 2023, compared to the nationwide average of $31.48, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Regional Commissioner Jason Palmer noted that higher paying major occupational groups included management ($51.32), architecture and engineering ($46.58), and healthcare practitioners and technical ($41.89). Lower paying occupations included food preparation and serving related ($14.52), personal care and service ($15.71), and building and grounds cleaning and maintenance ($18.27). (See table A.)

Occupational groups with the highest employment in the Waterloo area included transportation and material moving (10.7 percent), office and administrative support (10.5 percent), and production (9.7 percent). Major occupational groups on the lower end of local employment included legal (0.4 percent); life, physical, and social science (0.5 percent); and arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media (1.2 percent). (See table A.)

One occupational group-office and administrative support-was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Waterloo had 9,050 jobs in office and administrative support, accounting for 10.5 percent of local area employment, compared to the 12.2-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $21.50, compared to the national wage of $23.05.

Some of the larger detailed occupations within the office and administrative support group included customer service representatives (1,560), office clerks, general (1,360), and bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks (730). Among the higher-paying jobs in this group were executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants and first-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers, with mean hourly wages of $29.91 and $28.82, respectively. At the lower end of the wage scale were library assistants, clerical ($12.70) and hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks ($13.78). (Detailed data for the 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_47940.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 Waterloo area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in some of the occupations within the office and administrative support group. For instance, bill and account collectors were employed at 1.9 times the national rate in Waterloo, and loan interviewers and clerks, at 1.7 times the U.S. average. Hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks had a location quotient of 1.0 in Waterloo, indicating that this particular occupation's local and national employment shares were similar.

The statistics in this release are from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey, a cooperative effort between BLS and the State Workforce Agencies (SWAs). BLS funds the survey and provides the procedures and technical support. State Workforce Agencies collect most of the data: in this case, Iowa Workforce Development.

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. Full OEWS data tables are available online.

Additional information about the OEWS estimates and methodology are available in the national Technical Notes. The overall national response rate for the six panels, based on the 50 states and the District of Columbia, is 65.8 percent based on establishments and 64.3 percent based on weighted sampled employment. The sample in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls, IA Metropolitan Statistical Area included 1,248 establishments with a response rate of 64 percent.

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 Waterloo-Cedar Falls, IA Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Black Hawk County, Bremer County, and Grundy County.

For more information

Answers to frequently asked questions about the OEWS data, as well as general program documentation, are available on the OEWS website.

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 office and administrative support occupations, Waterloo metropolitan area, May 2023

Occupation (1)	Employment	Mean wages ($)
Level (2)	Location quotient (3)	Hourly	Annual (4)
Office and administrative support occupations	9,050	0.9	21.50	44,710
First-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers	550	0.6	28.82	59,940
Bill and account collectors	210	1.9	17.96	37,360
Billing and posting clerks	150	0.6	21.46	44,630
Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks	730	0.9	22.36	46,510
Payroll and timekeeping clerks	40	0.5	24.96	51,910
Tellers	330	1.7	17.75	36,910
Court, municipal, and license clerks	100	1.1	22.96	47,760
Customer service representatives	1,560	1.0	20.99	43,660
Eligibility interviewers, government programs	40	0.5	27.21	56,600
File clerks	50	1.1	21.26	44,220
Hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks	150	1.0	13.78	28,660
Interviewers, except eligibility and loan	100	1.1	18.38	38,240
Library assistants, clerical	40	0.9	12.70	26,410
Loan interviewers and clerks	200	1.7	21.68	45,090
New accounts clerks	80	3.6	19.55	40,670
Human resources assistants, except payroll and timekeeping	50	0.8	22.68	47,180
Receptionists and information clerks	240	0.4	15.73	32,720
Couriers and messengers	40	1.1	16.36	34,040
Public safety telecommunicators	30	0.6	26.06	54,210
Dispatchers, except police, fire, and ambulance	70	0.6	26.01	54,100
Postal service clerks	50	1.2	26.58	55,280
Postal service mail carriers	210	1.1	28.27	58,790
Postal service mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operators	80	1.2	27.16	56,490
Production, planning, and expediting clerks	240	1.1	28.44	59,150
Shipping, receiving, and inventory clerks	390	0.8	19.49	40,540
Executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants	170	0.6	29.91	62,220
Legal secretaries and administrative assistants	60	0.7	21.90	45,560
Medical secretaries and administrative assistants	580	1.4	18.55	38,590
Secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical, and executive	720	0.7	21.16	44,010
Data entry keyers	50	0.6	20.23	42,090
Insurance claims and policy processing clerks	60	0.4	22.05	45,860
Office clerks, general	1,360	1.0	20.31	42,250
Office and administrative support workers, all other	50	0.5	20.59	42,840
Footnotes: (1) For a complete listing of all detailed occupations in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls, IA Metropolitan Statistical Area, see www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_47940.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.

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