Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)
- What does the OES program produce? The OES program produces occupational employment and wage estimates for about 800 occupations.
- Are occupational estimates available for each state and each Metropolitan Statistical Area? Yes, occupational estimates are available for the nation, each state, and each MSA. Additionally, some states also produce occupational estimates for WIA areas or planning regions.
- Are the OES estimates available by educational attainment, race, sex, or age? No, the OES program produces occupational estimates by area and industry only. The survey simply asks for employers to report their employment by SOC categories and corresponding survey pay ranges.
- What is the definition of employees in the OES program? Employees include all part or full-time workers who are paid a wage or salary. The survey does not include data on self-employed owners and partners of unincorporated firms (unless they are reportable to the UI system), household workers, and unpaid family workers.
- How are wages defined? Wages are defined as straight-time gross pay, exclusive of premium pay, including base rate, cost-of-living allowances, guaranteed pay, hazardous-duty pay, incentive pay including commissions and production bonuses, and on-call pay, and tips. Exclusions from wages include back pay, jury duty pay, overtime pay, severance pay, shift differentials, and nonproduction bonuses.
- How is the wage data reported? All wage data are reported as hourly except for teaching occupations and education administrators which are reported as contractual. The survey requires employers to classify workers by SOC.
- Is the survey is voluntary? Yes, the survey is voluntary though statistics are provided for New Mexico and it’s four MSA’s (Albuquerque MSA, Farmington MSA, Las Cruces MSA, and Santa Fe MSA) through the cooperative agreement with BLS. BLS provides states an opportunity to produce occupational employment and wage statistics through their methodology.
- Does confidentiality apply? Some occupations may not have data for New Mexico. When only a few workers or a few employers are reported, we are required to suppress publication for that occupation if data would reveal confidential employer information. Information is also suppressed if the resulting estimates have a low degree of confidence.
- What is the mean wage? The mean wage refers to the average wage and is computed by dividing the estimated total wage for an occupation by its weighted employment.
- What is the entry wage? The entry wage is the average of the lowest third of the population for that occupation.
- What is the experienced wage? The experienced wage is the average of the upper two-thirds of the population for that occupation.
- What is the 10th percentile wage? The 10th percentile wage is the point at which 10% of employment was below this wage and 90% was above. Likewise the 25th percentile wage is the point at which 25% of the employment was below this wage and 75% was above. The median wage or 50th percentile wage is the point at which 50% of the employment was below this wage and 50% was above. The 75th percentile wage is the point at which 75% of the employment was below this wage and 25% was above. The 90th percentile wage is the point at which 90% of the employment was below this wage and 10% was above.
- The Relative Standard Error (RSE) is defined as the Standard Error (SE) divided by the estimated value as computed from the sample. OES uses a RSE of a sample estimate instead of an SE to measure sampling error. Sampling error occurs when a sample is used to represent the full population. The standard error is the measure of variability from the population. The BLS uses a 95 percent confidence interval, which upon repeating the sampling and estimation process and adding or subtracting 2 SEs from the sample estimate, approximately 95 percent of the intervals would include the population value. The higher the RSE, the less reliable the estimate will be. High RSE’s indicate the resulting confidence interval may not reflect the prescribed level of confidence.
- How are the wage estimates updated? The BLS uses the ECI to update the occupational wage estimate to a more current point in time. Starting with the 1997 estimates, the OES program has used the over-the-year fourth-quarter wage changes from the Bureau's Employment Cost Index (ECI) to adjust prior year survey data before combining it with the current survey year data. This data set is updated using the September 2010 ECI factors.
- If we have additional questions, who can we contact? For more information about the OES program, please contact the Economic Research and Analysis Bureau at the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions. The ER&A Bureau’s phone number is (505) 383-2729.