Would you like to make more money? Now that the New Year has gotten well underway, many North Carolinians have begun to search for a new occupation that offers more attractive pay. The good news is that there are hundreds of occupations that offer an above average wage, and analyzing LEAD Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) data can help determine which those are.
Which jobs are well paying? In many cases, they are in fields that people have come to expect. For generations, children have been encouraged to get ahead by studying medicine, and data indicates that still rings true. For example, there were nearly 3,6001 Family and General Practitioners in the state who earned an average annual wage of $192,140 in 2014. But not only doctors made above-average wages. In fact, Physician Assistants earned an average of $92,310 and Pharmacists, $120,570. Combined, nearly 13,000 people in North Carolina were employed in these occupations in 2014 with more than 600 annual job openings projected from 2012–2022.
Healthcare occupations are divided into two major occupational groups that pay very differently. Nearly a quarter of a million North Carolina workers were employed in the Healthcare Practitioner and Technical Occupations group which paid an average annual wage of $69,610 in 2014. At the same time, nearly 147,000 were employed in the Healthcare Support Occupations group, paying an average of $24,920 a year.
Is it good to be the boss? People often associate management careers with higher pay and the data bears this out. In North Carolina, there were 52,000 General and Operations Managers who earned an average of $125,240 a year. This occupation is projected to have more than 1,800 openings annually from 201–2022. Overall, 171,000 were employed in the Management Occupations group in 2014.
Most of the 22 major occupational groups include some combination of well-paying and low-paying occupations. However, all occupations in three of the groups had average wages above that of North Carolina: Management; Business and Financial Operations; and Computer/Mathematical. Conversely, more than 90 percent of the occupations in four major groups had average wages less than the state average, including: Food Preparation and Serving; Building and Grounds Cleaning/Maintenance; Personal Care and Service; and Farming, Fishing, and Forestry.
To illustrate which occupations pay more and less than average in our state, the following charts rank the 10 most prevalent occupations in each average annual wage range based on occupational employment (in parentheses). Average annual wages for North Carolina occupations were sorted highest paying to lowest paying and divided into 10 equal wage ranges, or deciles. The numbers employed in each occupation determined the prevalence rankings within each range. The first chart presents the five ranges greater than the 2014 $42,420 average annual wage for all occupations, while the second chart presents the five ranges less than the average annual wage.
While high paying jobs exist in great numbers, occupations that pay less than average employ most workers in the state. More than a quarter of all jobs are in the lowest paying 10 percent of occupations. Many of these jobs are in areas that you might expect, such as Combined Food Preparation and Serving, which employed 135,000 workers. On average, these jobs pay $17,830 annually and entry often doesn’t require a high school diploma. Combined, there were nearly 100,000 employed in Nursing Assistants and Home Health Aides jobs in the state. Retail Salesperson is the most prevalent sales occupation employing 140,000 in North Carolina with more than 6,000 projected openings a year from 2012–2022. Retail Salesperson jobs often require less than a high school diploma and paid an average of $24,430 a year in 2014.
The most prevalent occupations employ the majority of workers in each salary range. However, there are hundreds of occupations that lie outside the top 10 that also employ many in the state. For example, at the upper end of the pay spectrum, there were nearly 6,300 who worked as Construction Managers and made an average of $93,030 a year in 2014. At the lower end of the pay spectrum, more than 27,000 worked in Landscaping and Grounds Keeping Worker jobs that paid an average of $23,740 annually. The following chart distributes North Carolina occupational employment by wage range and by the most prevalent occupations (and those outside the top 10) within each range. It also shows that the lowest three wage ranges (under $32,800) captured half of state occupational employment in 2014.
Footnotes:
1. Occupational Employment Statistics, Labor & Economic Analysis Division, North Carolina Department of Commerce. For more information on the OES program, see http://esesc23.esc.state.nc.us/d4/OESSelection.aspx.
General Disclaimers:
LEAD’s Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) program produces employment and wage estimates annually. The employment and wage data represented are estimates only. Data for the surveys were collected on different occupational structures and, therefore, are not directly comparable. State-level OES employment estimates are not directly comparable to those from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) program due to differences in methodology. Any mistakes in data management, analysis, or presentation are the author’s.