In this Friday Factday, we are taking another look at the Occupational Employment Survey (OES) data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). In a previous post using the OES data, we provided an interactive tool for comparing occupations by total employment, median annual wages, and the prevalence of regional employment in each occupation to such employment in the nation as a whole. The tool created for this week’s post uses the same data source to explore changes in employment and wages by occupation between 2014 and 2017. It also classifies the occupations into high-, middle-, and low-wage categories** to allow for an in-depth comparative look at how employment has changed for these wage categories. For example, looking at the tool below, you can see that the largest increase among Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations (the default selection below) has been for those occupations in the middle-wage category– which grew by 3,280 jobs between 2014 and 2017, for a 13.6% increase. Scrolling through the detailed view at the bottom of the tool, you should notice that the largest contributor to growth in middle-wage jobs within this Arts, Design major occupation category has come from increased employment in Film and Video Editing occupations.
Explore other major occupation categories by using the drop down menu, then hovering over the charts to view the associated data for the wage categories and the detailed occupations.
** Wage categories are defined, here, relative to an average wage in the Atlanta Metro region in 2017 of $51,390. Low-wage occupations are those earning less than 80% of the average wage, middle-wage occupations are those earning between 80% and 120% of the average wage, and high-wage occupations are those earning more than 120% of the average wage.