Deschutes County wages 11 pct. below U.S. average

Workers in the Bend Metropolitan Statistical Area (Deschutes County) had an average (mean) hourly wage of $20.22 in May 2014, about 11 percent below the nationwide average of $22.71, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday.

Regional Commissioner Richard J. Holden noted that, after testing for statistical significance, wages in the local area were higher than their respective national averages in six of the 22 major occupational groups, including protective service; health care practitioners and technical; and health care support.

Twelve groups had significantly lower wages than their respective national averages, including management; legal; and computer and mathematical.

Wednesday evening, NewsChannel 21’s Femi Abebefe caught up with a few Bend residents to hear their reaction to the numbers.

“Well, all there is is small businesses here, and they all pay jack,” one man said.

Scott Cook, owner of the new Cobalt restaurant in downtown Bend, said he was surprised when he learned what the study found.

“You’re not talking 1 percent, 2 percent — you’re talking about, anything over 10 percent — I mean, that’s thousands of dollars,” Cook said. “If you’re making $40,000 a year, $4,000 goes a long way.”

With significantly lower wages, Bend still attracts people from all over.

“My experience, having grown up here, is that because of the lifestyle, people are willing to make less to live better,” said Kevin Rea.

Here’s more of what the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported:

When compared to the nationwide distribution, local employment was more highly concentrated in eight of the 22 occupational groups, including food preparation and serving related; sales and related; and personal care and service.

Conversely, eight groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including production; business and financial operations; and transportation and material moving.

One occupational group—food preparation and serving related—was chosen to illustrate the diversity of data available for any of the 22 major occupational categories. Bend had 8,090 jobs in food preparation and serving related, accounting for 12.4 percent of local area employment, significantly higher than the 9.1-percent share nationally. The average hourly wage for this occupational group locally was $11.02, significantly above the national wage of $10.57.

Some of the largest detailed occupations within the food preparation and serving related group included waiters and waitresses (1,930), restaurant cooks (1,180), and combined food preparation and serving workers, including fast food (930).

Among the higher paying jobs were chefs and head cooks, and institution and cafeteria cooks, with mean hourly wages of $18.47 and $13.84, respectively.

At the lower end of the wage scale were fast food cooks ($9.78) and restaurant, lounge, and coffee shop hosts and hostesses ($10.07).

(Detailed occupational data for food preparation and serving related are presented in table 1; for a complete listing of detailed occupations available go to www.bls.gov/oes/2014/may/oes_13460.htm .)

Location quotients allow us to explore the occupational make-up of a metropolitan area by comparing the composition of jobs in an area relative to the national average. (See table 1.)

For example, a location quotient of 2.0 indicates that an occupation accounts for twice the share of employment in the area than it does nationally.

In the Bend Metropolitan Statistical Area, above-average concentrations of employment were found in many of the occupations within the food preparation and serving related group.

For instance, cafeteria, food concession, and coffee shop counter attendants were employed at 3.3 times the national rate in Bend, and restaurant cooks, at 2.2 times the U.S. average.

On the other hand, first-line supervisors of food preparation and serving workers had a location quotient of 1.1 in Bend, indicating that this particular occupation’s local and national employment shares were similar.

These statistics are from the Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) survey, a federal-state cooperative program between BLS and State Workforce Agencies, in this case, the Oregon Employment Department.