Wages by Occupation and Pittsburgh (by Kelleigh Boland and Ron Painter)

The wage data by occupation provided by the Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board (TRWIB) on the Economy section of the PittsburghToday website has created a lot of questions/comments on how the data is compiled, what is included, and what will the region do about the results. The answers to those questions can be found below.

How is the data compiled?
The data utilized is housed at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and is part of the Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) Program. The OES program produces estimates of the number of people employed in certain occupations and the estimates of wages paid to them for over 800 occupations.

The data can be broken out to national, statewide, metropolitan, and non-metropolitan levels. The OES is a semi-annual mail survey and surveys approximately 200,000 establishments per panel (every six months), taking three years to fully collect the sample of 1.2 million establishments. The May 2007 OES estimates referenced on the Pittsburgh Today website are benchmarked to the average of the May 2007 and November 2006 reference periods.

What is included in the data?
The OES data includes all part-time and full-time workers who are paid a wage or salary. Self-employed persons are not included in the data. The occupations that are highlighted were chosen as a result of TRWIB’s prior research and recommendations of the Pittsburgh Today Economy committee. The occupations are categorized using a Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system used by federal statistical agencies to classify workers into occupational categories. All workers are classified into one of 820 occupations according to their occupational definition. On the Pittsburgh Today website, you will find 18 of those 820 occupations and their wages.

What are next steps for the Pittsburgh region?
An article written by David Guo in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette on June 17th starts, “Pittsburgh employers wondering why jobs in finance or nursing go unfilled may need to look no further than one fact—poor pay.” It is true that of the 18 occupational wages TRWIB compared across cities, Pittsburgh does not fare well. At the highest end of the scale Pittsburgh comes in fourth for family physicians and general practitioners, fifth for hotel clerks, and sixth for plumbers.

So what does this all mean? In a region that has more out-migration than in and has 50,000 more older workers and 50,000 few younger workers than other cities, it could mean everything.

As a region, we have to be realistic in what we are and what we are not. We will never rival LA, New York, or Washington, DC, because of the plethora of opportunities available there that we can’t produce here. A lot of attention has been paid to the region’s efforts at attracting and retaining young talent. Young people do and will continue to leave for a particular city that has a willingness to hire fresh-out graduates and offers high wages. We are told this repeatedly through surveys and through the amount of young people leaving our region.

For some young people, the “cost of living” is a vague concept in deciding where to live; other amenities are more important. Low wage offers in a city that struggles with diversity and risk is not the most attractive choice. However, efforts are being made to better connect students, both high school and college, to career opportunities in our region.

Tying what youth learn in school to real life career opportunities in our region is one way to step up the talent attraction and retention goal. Organizations like Smart Futures, Youthworks, Junior Achievement, Urban Youth Action, The Boys and Girls Clubs of Western PA, Allegheny Intermediate Unit, The Consortium for Public Education, Allegheny Conference, Coro Center for Civic Leadership, and TRWIB have all made career education for students a priority.

TRWIB alone, through the Employers and Educations Engaged for Excellence (E4) program, has already assisted 4,601 students with career exploration/interest assessment activities. In addition, the Pennsylvania Department of Education has created the Career Education and Work Standards to ensure each youth has a career exploration journey prior to graduation.

Career education and showing students the opportunities available in southwestern PA will not stop them from leaving completely, but it is a way to engage them in what we have to offer and if they see something they like, they just may decide to stay.

Kelleigh Boland
Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board
Research and Planning Coordinator

Ron Painter
Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board
Chief Executive Officer