How OEWS can take the mystery out of your job search

Looking for a job and don’t know where to start? Consider preparing yourself with information from the 

Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Data from 

the OEWS program can serve as a useful resource for jobseekers. OEWS data are valuable because they show 

employment and wages for individual occupations in specific geographic areas or industries. These data, updated 

annually, are available online at www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm. There are many ways to use these free, publicly 

available data. Here are some tips on how to use OEWS data to focus your job search:

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION! Although larger metropolitan areas tend to 

attract jobseekers because of high employment levels, some occupations have 

higher employment levels in smaller areas. For example, aspiring nursing assistants 

could search for jobs in the New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago metropolitan 

areas, which are three of the locations with the highest employment levels for this 

occupation. However, Midland, Texas, was among the areas with the highest 

employment of wellhead pumpers, and Fort Collins, Colorado, was among the 

areas with the highest employment of conservation scientists.

LOOK INTO WAGES: Wages vary for numerous reasons, including different 

skills, experience, geographic locations, and industry. Although jobseekers 

may be tempted to move to areas where wages are significantly higher, 

they should consider cost of living before packing up. The New York 

metropolitan area may have higher-than-average wages and employment, 

but the high cost of living can offset these higher wages.

TARGET YOUR SEARCH: Many occupations are found predominantly in 

specific industries. For example, 50 percent of civil engineers worked in the 

engineering services industry and 26 percent worked for federal, state, and 

local government. With this knowledge, jobseekers who originally may have 

focused on finding openings for this occupation in the private sector can 

broaden the scope of their searches to include government employers as 

well. 

FOCUS ON YOUR INTERESTS: On the OEWS website, you can search a comprehensive list 

of about 830 occupations to find those related to your interests or experience. For 

example, under “Community and Social Service Occupations,” you will find occupations 

such as marriage and family therapists, healthcare social workers, and rehabilitation 

counselors. Alternatively, if you are interested in working in a particular industry, you can 

find information on the variety of jobs in that industry. For example, jobs in the arts, 

entertainment, and recreation industry include exercise trainers and group fitness 

instructors, self-enrichment teachers, and producers and directors. 

OEWS

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Occupation National 

employment

National annual 

average wage

Computer systems analysts 505,210 $107,530

Computer programmers 132,740 102,790

Network and computer systems 

administrators 325,930 97,160

To see these techniques put to use in a real-life situation, we can use the example of Kelly, a computer science major 

trying to find a career path after graduating from college. She might consider one of the following occupations that 

many computer science majors enter:

After some thought, Kelly decides that 

she would like to know more about 

being a computer systems analyst. 

By visiting the OEWS website, Kelly can find industries with the highest wages for computer systems analysts, as 

shown in the graph below:

Kelly also wants to know how 

concentrated employment for her 

chosen occupation is in different states. 

On the OEWS occupational profile page 

for computer systems analysts, she 

finds a location quotient map that 

graphically shows the employment 

concentration of computer systems 

analysts in each state. By holding her 

mouse pointer over Virginia in the map, 

Kelly easily finds that the employment 

concentration for computer systems 

analysts is 1.82 times as high in Virginia 

as in the United States as a whole. The 

same “hover over” option on the map 

also shows that there were 24,080 

computer systems analysts in Virginia, 

representing approximately 6.22 out of 

every 1,000 jobs and earning an 

average of $114,050 per year.