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Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics provides accurate and meaningful wage information to employers, job seekers, counselors, students, planners of vocational education programs, economic developers, Regional Workforce Development Boards, and others. Employers may find the data useful as a guide in analyzing pay scales; job seekers and students could utilize the information in making employment and career decisions; program planners should be aware of employment and wage levels in determining training programs to be offered.
Although the OEWS survey methodology is designed to create detailed cross-sectional employment and wage estimates by geographic area or industry, it is less useful for comparing two or more points in time. Challenges in using OEWS data as a time series include changes in the occupational, industrial, and geographic classification systems, changes in the way data are collected, changes in the survey reference period, changes in mean wage estimation methodology, and changes in overall OEWS methodology. The Bureau of Labor Statistics at present does not use or encourage the use of OEWS data for time-series analysis. Where users choose to make such comparisons, we would caution them to note the changes in survey procedures and the limits of the methods used with a pooled sample.
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