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MKT-343: Market Research Design

Labor Market

Finding Wage Information

Researching wages is an important part of examining the labor relations of a particular firm. Say that you need to resources that have wage rate information searchable by these three criteria: (1) NAICS code, (2) Local, regional, and national area, and (3) Skill level (entry level and highest paid level). Here are suggestions on how to do this:

  • The Bureau of Labor Statistics provides some of the information you need. Entitled: Wages by Area and Occupation:
  • The National Compensation Survey (NCS) is another survey. The NCS is a little more current than the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It has fewer occupations, but does include skill levels for some of the occupations. The NCS is based on "personal interviews and visits," supposedly making the survey data a little more accurate. It provides comprehensive measures of occupational earnings; compensation cost trends, benefit incidence, and detailed plan provisions. Detailed occupational earnings are available for metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas, broad geographic regions, and on a national basis. The index component of the NCS (ECI) measures changes in labor costs. Average hourly employer cost for employee compensation is presented in the ECEC.
  • On this page: http://lehd.did.census.gov/led/index.html, click on the link for QWI Online. The QWI is the Quarterly Workforce Indicators database. It only has state and metro level data, and only for participating states. Alabama is a participating state. You can search by metro area and also get state level data. You can also search by 2-digit NAICS code for industries. The wage data, unfortunately, is only average monthly earnings and average new hire earnings.
  • Also try O'Net; (Occupational Information Network). This site has most SIC codes.
  • Salary.com will cover geographic area, and skill level.

Labor Statistics