The Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program is a federal-state cooperative effort between the North Carolina Department of Commerce, Labor and Economic Analysis Division (LEAD) and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The OEWS program provides annual estimates of occupational employment and wages for the Nation, State, and Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA). Information is derived from semiannual surveys of employers conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in collaboration with LEAD. The OEWS program produces occupational data series for the Nation, State of North Carolina, 16 MSAs and 3 Nonmetropolitan geographic areas with counties within North Carolina. Lists of geographic areas by state can be found at: https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oessrcma.htm. To see North Carolina’s areas, please scroll down to the North Carolina section of the page. (An Excel file with metropolitan and nonmetropolitan area definitions, including names of counties that comprise them, is also available for download by using the link provided.)

Estimates for all occupations are not available for all geographies. Some estimates are suppressed to protect the confidentiality of employer respondents and other estimates are suppressed due to data quality issues. Blank cells in the selected data series indicate that estimates are not available for the selected series, while cells with asterisks indicate data suppression.

OEWS data are released on an annual basis and the corresponding data reflect an employment and wage reference period from the prior year. This reference year is seen in the data table displayed. For example, the OEWS data that were released in Spring 2025 reflect a reference period of May of 2024.