Data catalog

Occupational employment and wages (OEWS)

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Publisher site
economy
statistic

In a RepVector build, this dataset shows whether the money behind a territory is growing or contracting.

Employment and median annual wage for any occupation in a state, free.

Look up wages by occupation
Sample of the actual data
2 rows captured for Columbus, Sharon, Franklin County, Ohio on 2026-08-18. Showing the first 2.
OccupationEmploymentMedian annual wageMean annual wageAreaYear
All occupations1,105,580$51,340$67,270Columbus, OH Metro Area2,025
All occupations5,550,180$49,380$64,390Ohio2,025

What this dataset is

Employment levels, mean annual wage and median annual wage for occupations in a metro area or state. Answers what it costs to hire a given role in a place, and how many people already do that work there. It is published by U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and can be queried at cbsa and state level, refreshed annual. Each row is an aggregate statistic for a geography, so results describe a market as a whole rather than a single account.

Why it is useful

  • Distinguishes a market that is expanding from one that is merely large but flat.
  • Gives a defensible reason for sequencing territories when quota is fixed and travel time is not.
  • Anchors budget conversations in published income and output trends rather than anecdote.

Questions it helps answer

  • Is this territory's income base growing faster than the state as a whole?
  • Which markets have the economic headroom to absorb a price increase?
  • Where is output shrinking enough to justify pulling coverage back?

How different verticals use it

RepVector is vertical-agnostic: this dataset is selected by what your question asks for, not by industry. These are common ways teams put it to work.

Manufacturing & industrial

Tracks regional output to decide which territories can absorb capacity expansion.

Financial services

Backs credit and expansion cases with published income and output trends.

Construction & real estate

Flags markets where the income base is growing ahead of the state average.

Healthcare & life sciences

Explains payer-mix pressure that shows up later in utilisation data.

How RepVector uses it

  1. You describe a market in plain language. The geography resolver turns the place you named into the exact identifiers this dataset needs — city to county to state, plus DMA where relevant — so a query at cbsa runs without you knowing any codes.
  2. The planner selects Occupational employment and wages (OEWS) only when your question matches what it actually reports. It is never included to pad a result.
  3. Returned rows are normalised into the shared metric layer, so figures from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics line up with every other source in the same dashboard instead of sitting in an isolated table.
  4. Quality checks score coverage and recency. If U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics suppresses or omits a value for your geography, the gap is reported as a gap — nothing is estimated or filled in.
  5. The result renders as charts, KPIs and, where the rows are entities, prioritised targets you can export to PDF, Excel, CSV or JSON.

What it does not tell you

  • Reports aggregate trends with a reporting lag; it will not reflect a plant closure or opening from last quarter.
At a glance
How this dataset can be queried and how current it stays.
Publisher
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Geographic grain
cbsa
state
Refresh cadence
Annual
Row represents
statistic
Topics
wages
salary
pay
labor cost
hiring
workforce
occupation
employment
staffing
talent
labor market
compensation
Available fields
The columns this dataset returns in a RepVector build.
FieldKeyType
Occupationoccupationstring
Employmentemploymentnumber
Median annual wagemedianAnnualWagecurrency
Mean annual wagemeanAnnualWagecurrency
Areaareageo
Yearyearnumber

How it fits with the rest of the catalog

Economic trend lines explain the direction of a market; business counts and spending data explain who inside it is transacting. RepVector queries every selected dataset against the same resolved geography and time window, then normalises the results into one metric layer so they can be charted side by side. These datasets are the most common companions to Occupational employment and wages (OEWS):

Browse all datasets

Common questions

What is OES / OEWS data?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program: annual employment counts and wage estimates for around 800 occupations, by state and metropolitan area.

How often is it updated?

Annually. The BLS publishes estimates each spring for the previous May reference period.

Put Occupational employment and wages (OEWS) to work in your market
Describe the market and the customer you want in plain language. RepVector resolves the geography, selects the datasets that actually answer it — including this one when it fits — and builds the dashboard, targets and exports.

Build the list for one county and see whether the names are right.

Ask in plain language. RepVector finds the universe, enriches each target from its own website, scores it 0–100, and hands you a ranked call list with phones, addresses and named contacts.

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