by Carson Gorecki
July 2024
Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics or OEWS is our most detailed look into the distribution of employment by occupation. The OEWS program is based upon the standard occupational classification structure (SOC) which classifies workers into one of more than 900 unique occupations based on the tasks and responsibilities of each position. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, "detailed occupations in the SOC with similar job duties, and in some cases skills, education, and/or training, are grouped together" into 22 Occupational Groups.
One of the reasons why OEWS is not often used for comparisons over time is because the SOC structure is updated periodically, changing codes, definitions, and titles as the way we work evolves. This makes comparing employment levels over time less straightforward, but still possible as most occupational definitions are not revised. In addition to coding changes, there have also been declining response rates to the OEWS, particularly in 2020 and 2021. Fortunately, Minnesota's response rate is typically higher than that of the national survey. As of the latest round, the response rate remained near 75% as 15,000 of 20,000 potential employers participated. Lastly, the OEWS is constructed from a three-year sample. The most recent OEWS information is based on data collected in 2021, 2022, and 2023. In order to compare data over time effectively, we need to make sure that the three-year periods do not overlap. With these caveats in mind, we can tread carefully through an analysis of occupational change in Northeast Minnesota.
The broader occupational groups provide a useful starting point for comparison. Many of the individual code changes or revisions will not show up at the larger group level. This is because occupational changes mostly occur within occupational groups as opposed to between. There are a few exceptions that I will address below.
First, the overall number of jobs estimated via the OEWS fell 6,420 or about 4.4% from the 2019 survey period into the 2024 period (see Table 1). This aligns with other employment estimates showing declines over the pandemic period. Since the OEWS estimates include data from a three-year period, the declines are larger than the annual totals of other programs such as the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (-3.4%, 2019 through year ending in Q1 2024) and Current Employment Statistics (-3.0%, 2019 to 12 month period ending 6/24), but are of roughly the same magnitude. The 2024 OEWS totals include the impacts of the three previous years when the recovery in the region was still very much ongoing, pulling the employment averages down.
| Table 1. Northeast Minnesota Occupational Employment Statistics by Year, 2019 and 2024 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Occupational Group | 2019 Employment | 2019 Employment Share | 2024 Employment | 2024 Employment Share |
| Total, All Occupations | 144,430 | 100.0% | 138,010 | 100.0% |
| Office and Administrative Support | 20,430 | 14.1% | 16,760 | 12.1% |
| Food Preparation and Serving Related | 15,000 | 10.4% | 13,910 | 10.1% |
| Sales and Related | 13,640 | 9.4% | 11,740 | 8.5% |
| Healthcare Practitioners and Technical | 11,600 | 8.0% | 11,510 | 8.3% |
| Education, Training, and Library | 8,270 | 5.7% | 8,350 | 6.1% |
| Personal Care and Service* | 7,760 | 5.4% | 3,050 | 2.2% |
| Production | 7,390 | 5.1% | 6,550 | 4.7% |
| Management | 7,270 | 5.0% | 7,740 | 5.6% |
| Transportation and Material Moving | 7,210 | 5.0% | 8,810 | 6.4% |
| Installation, Maintenance, and Repair | 6,760 | 4.7% | 6,760 | 4.9% |
| Healthcare Support* | 6,530 | 4.5% | 9,260 | 6.7% |
| Construction and Extraction | 6,220 | 4.3% | 7,590 | 5.5% |
| Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance | 5,400 | 3.7% | 4,560 | 3.3% |
| Community and Social Services | 5,180 | 3.6% | 4,280 | 3.1% |
| Business and Financial Operations | 5,000 | 3.5% | 5,970 | 4.3% |
| Protective Service | 2,920 | 2.0% | 3,070 | 2.2% |
| Architecture and Engineering | 2,200 | 1.5% | 2,180 | 1.6% |
| Computer and Mathematical | 1,820 | 1.3% | 2,090 | 1.5% |
| Life, Physical, and Social Science | 1,660 | 1.1% | 1,820 | 1.3% |
| Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media | 1,290 | 0.9% | 1,250 | 0.9% |
| Legal | 510 | 0.4% | 540 | 0.4% |
| Farming, Fishing, and Forestry | 370 | 0.3% | 220 | 0.2% |
| *Indicates an occupational group that was impacted by significant non-economic code changes | ||||
| Source: DEED Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics | ||||
For the purposes of comparison over time, the relative measure of employment share is particularly useful. There was no change in the ranking of the four largest occupational groups over five years (see Table 1). Despite a decline in overall share, Office and Administrative support occupations retained the largest percent of overall jobs in the region, followed by Food Preparation and Serving Related, Sales and Related, and Healthcare Practitioners and Technical occupations. After the top-five there was some movement. Education, Training, and Library, Personal Care and Service, and Production which were the 5th, 6th, and 7th largest in 2019, moved down to 7th, 16th, and 11th largest respectively in 2024. Moving up to take the 5th and 6th largest spots were Healthcare Support (from 11th) and Transportation and Material Moving (from 9th).
The largest changes in share and ranking were the move up of six spots by Healthcare Support and the corresponding move down of Personal Care and Service by 10 positions. This marked change was caused largely by a coding change of a few, large occupations. Personal and Home Care Aides and Home Health Aides, the former under Personal Care and Service and the latter under Healthcare Support in 2019, were combined and recoded under Healthcare Support as Home Health and Personal Care Aides. This change took an occupation that had an estimated 4,320 jobs (Personal and Home Care Aides) in 2019 and moved it to a different occupational group. As a result, the big jump of Healthcare Support jobs may not have been as big as it first appears, just as the decline of Personal Care and Service jobs was likely not as large.
We can still assess occupational changes without the impacts of non-economic changes like the Home Health and Personal Care Aides detailed above. To do this we must measure regional occupational changes relative to the state, where the same coding revisions were applied. Location quotients (LQs) are the ideal tool for this job. The tool linked to in the previous sentence applies LQs to industry employment in Minnesota's substate areas, but we can easily apply the same calculations to occupations as well. When we do so, we can see how the occupational makeup of our regional workforce has changed relative to the state's over the last five years.
First, the most concentrated occupational groups in the region as of 2024 were Community and Social Service, Construction and Extraction, and Protective Service (see Table 2). Each of these groups had an LQ of at least 1.4, when an LQ equal to 1 means an employment share equivalent to the state. From 2019 to 2024, the concentration of Protective Service and Construction and Extraction jobs increased while the share of Community and Social Services jobs declined relative to the share of statewide jobs in that occupational group. Farming, Fishing, and Forestry occupations, which were the most concentrated in the 2019 survey, fell to a tie for fifth along with Healthcare Practitioners and Technical and Life, Physical, and Social Science occupations which both saw their footprints grow slightly.
Other occupational groups that expanded in concentration in Northeast Minnesota relative to the state were some of the least concentrated such as Computer and Mathematical and Legal, as well as Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media. Despite the large absolute increase in jobs and increase in share of employment, Healthcare Support saw the second-largest decline in concentration after only Farming, Fishing, and Forestry occupations. Of the 15 occupational groups that saw their concentration expand relative to the state, 10 also had median wages above the regional median for all occupations.
| Table 2. Location Quotients by Occupational Group in Northeast Minnesota, 2019 and 2024 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Occupational Group | 2019 Location Quotient | 2024 Location Quotient | Percent LQ Change 2019-2024 | 2024 Median Wage |
| Community and Social Services | 1.78 | 1.54 | -13.2% | $25.46 |
| Construction and Extraction | 1.23 | 1.43 | 16.2% | $32.73 |
| Protective Service | 1.31 | 1.40 | 7.0% | $26.04 |
| Installation, Maintenance, and Repair | 1.34 | 1.35 | 0.6% | $29.94 |
| Farming, Fishing, and Forestry | 1.85 | 1.30 | -29.3% | $22.88 |
| Healthcare Practitioners and Technical | 1.21 | 1.30 | 7.9% | $39.02 |
| Life, Physical, and Social Science | 1.26 | 1.30 | 3.4% | $35.31 |
| Food Preparation and Serving Related | 1.23 | 1.25 | 1.7% | $14.40 |
| Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance | 1.25 | 1.20 | -4.3% | $17.48 |
| Healthcare Support | 1.55 | 1.14 | -26.7% | $17.99 |
| Personal Care and Service | 1.07 | 1.07 | 0.2% | $17.17 |
| Education, Training, and Library | 0.99 | 1.07 | 8.1% | $25.65 |
| Sales and Related | 0.98 | 1.01 | 3.4% | $16.96 |
| Total, All Occupations | 1.00 | 1.00 | 0.0% | $23.41 |
| Office and Administrative Support | 1.00 | 0.99 | -0.6% | $22.44 |
| Transportation and Material Moving | 0.81 | 0.81 | 1.0% | $21.66 |
| Management | 0.84 | 0.80 | -5.0% | $45.28 |
| Architecture and Engineering | 0.78 | 0.78 | +0.2% | $40.12 |
| Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media | 0.65 | 0.72 | 11.8% | $23.33 |
| Production | 0.68 | 0.67 | -2.0% | $24.87 |
| Business and Financial Operations | 0.60 | 0.61 | 1.9% | $34.89 |
| Legal | 0.51 | 0.59 | 16.2% | $40.53 |
| Computer and Mathematical | 0.38 | 0.44 | 18.0% | $42.37 |
| Source: DEED Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics | ||||
We have so far focused on employment concentration. Now we turn to the "W" of OEWS, which is wages. Under the OEWS methodology, wage estimates from the three previous years (2021, 2022, and 2023) were escalated to 2024 using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Employment Cost Index (ECI) factors. By doing this, OEWS incorporates the impacts of increases in wages, salaries, and benefits, indirectly accounting for inflation.
Over the five years from 2019 to 2024, OEWS shows a median wage increase of 26.1% in Northeast Minnesota (see Table 3). This roughly aligns with the increases indicated by other sources of wages that DEED manages. Current Employment Statistics showed an increase of 30.9% from 2019 to 2024 through June in the Duluth Metro Area and Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages showed an increase of 27.3% from Q1 2019 to Q1 2024 in Northeast Minnesota.
Notably, the lower end of the wage distribution saw more rapid growth. The typical 25th percentile wage grew 1.4 times faster than the median for all occupations. By comparison, the 75th percentile wage expanded .87 times as fast as the median. As a result, the wage distribution narrowed. Whereas in 2019 the 25th percentile wage was 44% of the 75th percentile, by 2024 that measure increased to 50%. Of the 22 occupational groups, only six saw their 75th percentile wage grow faster than their 25th percentile wage. Four of those occupational groups (Business and Financial Operations, Legal, Computer and Mathematical, and Management) paid well above the all-occupational median.
Among occupational groups the fastest wage growth occurred in Sales and Related (37.2%), Personal Care and Service (36.9%), Office and Administrative Support (30.4%), and Installation, Maintenance, and Repair (30.4%). Of the eight occupational groups with above average median wage growth, four still paid below the 2024 median for all occupations in the region. The occupational groups with the slowest median wage growth were Education, Training, and Library (6.8%), Farming, Fishing, and Forestry (8.8%), Management (11.4%), and Protective Service (11.6%). While there is considerable diversity in wage growth across occupations, the most salient trend has been the relatively faster growth at the lower end of the wage distribution. This has been the case for the lowest-paying occupational groups as well as the lowest paying individual occupations within those groups.
| Table 3. Wage Statistics by Occupational Group in Northeast Minnesota, 2019 and 2024 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Occupational Group | 2024 25th Percentile Wage | 2024 Median Wage | 2024 75th Percentile Wage | 25th Percentile Wage Change 2019-2024 | Median Wage Change 2019-2024 | 75th Percentile Wage Change 2019-2024 |
| Management | $64,825 | $94,198 | $128,384 | 5.8% | 11.4% | 11.2% |
| Computer and Mathematical | $69,834 | $88,126 | $120,813 | 30.2% | 29.9% | 44.7% |
| Legal | $60,749 | $84,295 | $133,602 | 10.7% | 16.3% | 18.8% |
| Architecture and Engineering | $68,346 | $83,439 | $105,897 | 17.4% | 13.9% | 12.2% |
| Healthcare Practitioners and Technical | $61,616 | $81,169 | $103,448 | 27.5% | 26.1% | 15.2% |
| Life, Physical, and Social Science | $56,013 | $73,439 | $87,792 | 16.5% | 17.9% | 10.0% |
| Business and Financial Operations | $57,414 | $72,562 | $93,608 | 22.8% | 22.3% | 23.6% |
| Construction and Extraction | $55,900 | $68,088 | $81,340 | 29.7% | 19.6% | 15.7% |
| Installation, Maintenance, and Repair | $46,818 | $62,283 | $80,383 | 31.0% | 30.4% | 30.8% |
| Protective Service | $37,668 | $54,161 | $71,864 | 24.8% | 11.6% | 8.5% |
| Education, Training, and Library | $40,436 | $53,358 | $77,668 | 16.8% | 6.8% | +8.6% |
| Community and Social Services | $43,256 | $52,941 | $68,613 | 36.3% | 27.3% | 24.5% |
| Production | $40,672 | $51,723 | $69,218 | 25.7% | 14.6% | 13.6% |
| Total, All Occupations | $36,093 | $48,694 | $72,867 | 36.9% | 26.1% | 22.8% |
| Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, & Media | $36,126 | $48,539 | $67,591 | 20.7% | 16.5% | 16.3% |
| Farming, Fishing, and Forestry | $44,920 | $47,596 | $57,893 | 27.3% | 8.8% | 17.5% |
| Office and Administrative Support | $37,732 | $46,662 | $56,422 | 35.8% | 30.4% | 22.6% |
| Transportation and Material Moving | $35,945 | $45,038 | $59,300 | 31.0% | 19.9% | 19.4% |
| Healthcare Support | $33,856 | $37,424 | $42,398 | 21.9% | 17.2% | 8.4% |
| Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance | $31,173 | $36,372 | $44,975 | 31.8% | 29.5% | 23.1% |
| Personal Care and Service | $28,945 | $35,725 | $45,534 | 24.5% | 36.9% | 49.1% |
| Sales and Related | $29,708 | $35,269 | $46,739 | 31.3% | 37.2% | 25.0% |
| Food Preparation and Serving Related | $24,839 | $29,953 | $36,392 | 14.9% | 24.1% | 27.7% |
| Source: DEED Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics | ||||||
While there are many caveats to a comparison of OEWS data over time, it is still an illuminating process and can highlight some changes in the workforce and economy that may be hinted at via other data. And since there are not many good sources of occupational data that can be compared over time, a careful analysis of OEWS is often the best option at the state or regional level.
