It produces estimates of occupational employment, employment, and occupational wages. Occupational employment is defined as the number of employees in a given occupation. The OES program produces estimates of occupational employment by industry, that is, the number of employees in a given occupation in a given industry.
Occupational wages are the wages paid to employees in a given occupation.
Establishments are asked to report how many workers they employ in a given occupation in each of several wage ranges. With this data, the OES program produces various estimates of wages by occupation. The survey does not cover the self-employed, owners and partners in unincorporated firms, household workers, or unpaid family workers. The OES survey collected both occupational employment and occupational wage data for the first time in 1996. Prior to 1996, only occupational employment counts by industry were produced.