May 2017 Occupational Employment and Wages — 2018-03-30

Production occupations had employment of 9 million in May 2017, representing 6.3 percent of total national employment, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The largest production occupation was assemblers and fabricators, all other, including team assemblers (1.3 million) and the highest paying production occupation was nuclear power reactor operators ($94,350). The annual mean wage across all production occupations was $38,070, compared with the U.S. average wage of $50,620. (See table 1.) The Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) program provides employment and wage estimates for over 800 occupations in the nation, states, and 600 areas. National data are available by industry for approximately 415 industry classifications and by ownership across all industries, schools, and hospitals. This news release features production, healthcare, and construction and extraction occupations, in addition to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) occupations and employment and wages by typical entry-level educational requirement. National employment and wage information for all occupations is shown in table 1.