Educating The Work Force: Hard Data Re/Occupational Employment

From the Western Information Office for the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics there's this report for May 2015 [ .html version ] . . . what does this tell you about the emphasis on STEM education??
This report tells you what occupations are parts of the workforce and their average salaries

Occupational Employment and Wages in Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale — May 2015
Last Modified Date: Tuesday, June 28, 2016
News Release Information
16-1124-SAN
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
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Workers in the Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale Metropolitan Statistical Area had an average (mean) hourly wage of $22.45 in May 2015, about 3 percent below the nationwide average of $23.23, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Assistant Commissioner for Regional Operations Richard Holden noted that, after testing for statistical significance, wages in the local area were lower than their respective national averages in 13 of the 22 major occupational groups, including arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media; life, physical, and social science; and education, training, and library.

One group had significantly higher wages than their respective national averages: healthcare support.

When compared to the nationwide distribution, local employment was more highly concentrated in 8 of the 22 occupational groups, including office and administrative support; sales and related; and computer and mathematical.
Conversely, eight groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including production; education, training, and library; and transportation and material moving. (See table A and box note at end of release.)

These two occupations were the highest:
Admin & Office Support @ 17.8%, Sales/Related @ 11.6%

One occupational group—office and administrative support—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories.
Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale had 333,760 jobs in office and administrative support, accounting for 17.8 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 15.8-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $17.37, compared to the national wage of $17.47.

See >> Table 1. Employment and wage data from the Occupational Employment Statistics survey, by occupation, Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale Metropolitan Statistical Area, May 2015

 

Some of the largest detailed occupations were not in STEM fields - they were within the office and administrative support group and included
customer service representatives (66,010),
general office clerks (36,280)
secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical, and executive (28,620).

Among the higher paying jobs were
• postal service clerks
• executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants, with mean hourly wages of $26.10 and $25.20, respectively.

At the lower end of the wage scale were hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks ($11.01) and clerical library assistants ($11.98).
(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/2015/may/oes_38060.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 Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale Metropolitan Statistical Area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in some of the occupations within the office and administrative support group.

For instance, reservation and transportation ticket agents and travel clerks were employed at 2.3 times the national rate in Phoenix, and loan interviewers and clerks, at 2.3 times the U.S. average. On the other hand, stock clerks and order fillers had a location quotient of 1.0 in Phoenix, 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 Arizona Department of Administration.]

Notes on Occupational Employment Statistics Data

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.