Occupational employment and wage statistics (OEWS) is a federal, state cooperative program that produces annual employment and wage estimates for more than 800 occupations. You can use this report for career planning, to set wages, and to compare wages regionally and by occupation.
Latest report
Find more reports in the report library.
Report dashboard
Data source and technical notes
Each year, the Employment Security Department's Labor Market Information and Research (LMIR) division compiles occupational employment and wage estimates for Washington state. LMIR presents these data statewide, for metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) and nonmetropolitan areas (NMAs). All data are at the cross-industry level.
The occupational employment and wage estimates are based on the spring 2024 Occupational Employment Statistics survey. We combine survey data from the past three years, which is collected in the spring and fall.
We base the estimates in this publication on the 2010 Office of Management and Budget (OMB) area definitions, the 2022 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes at the four-digit level and the full 2018 Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) code manual. We do not provide occupation and wage estimates for farms, the self-employed, owner/partners in unincorporated firms, the military, household workers or unpaid family workers.
Estimates for some occupations or wage levels may be suppressed because they do not meet BLS publication standards or due to small sample size. These include occupations with an estimated employment of fewer than 10 people. Dashes shown in the data columns indicate suppressed data. We calculate annual wages by multiplying the hourly mean wage by 2080 hours. The relative standard error (RSE) is a measure of the reliability of a survey statistic. The smaller the relative standard error, the more precise the estimate.
For more information, visit the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics technical notes page on BLS’s website.