Average local worker earns $42K a year

PROVIDENCE – The average worker in the Providence area earned $20.54 an hour, or $42,723 a year, as of May, nearly the same as the national average of $20.32 an hour, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said today.

The highest-paid occupation both locally and nationally was management, a category that accounts for 4.4 percent of all local jobs. The average Providence-area manager earned $50.09 an hour or $104,187 a year, the agency’s twice-yearly survey of roughly 5,000 employers in the Providence-Fall River-Warwick metropolitan area found in May.

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The best-paid local occupational groups after management were legal ($43.22 an hour), which makes up 0.6 percent of all jobs; architecture and engineering ($35.29 an hour), which are 1.6 percent of all jobs; computer and mathematical science ($35.21 an hour), which are 1.9 percent of jobs.

The largest share of jobs was in the office and administrative support category, which make up 17.6 percent of the local work force and for which workers earn an average of $16 an hour.

That was followed by sales and related jobs, which account for 10 percent of all employment and earn $16.49 an hour on average, and food preparation and serving jobs, which make up another 10 percent of jobs and earn an average hourly wage of $10.43, the lowest wage of any of the 22 major occupational groups.

Local wages were higher than their respective national averages in 9 of the 22 occupational groups, including management, health care practitioner and technical, and construction and extraction, said Denis M. McSweeney, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ regional commissioner.

Only three occupational groups earned less here than the national average – business and financial operations, sales and related, and production, McSweeney said.

“When compared to the nationwide distribution, local employment was more highly concentrated in 7 of the 22 occupational groups, including production; food preparation and serving related; and health care practitioner and technical,” the agency said. “Conversely, nine groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including business and financial operations, and transportation and material moving.”

The Providence-Fall River-Warwick metropolitan area includes every city and town in Rhode Island except two – New Shoreham, on Block Island, and Westerly – and 12 Massachusetts municipalities in Bristol, Norfolk and Worcester counties.

Additional information is available at BLS.gov.