Inexperienced Wage: The wage for new workers entering the occupation. Because they lack experience and/or skilled training, new workers are not offered, or paid, the "average wage" for an occupation. The estimated "inexperienced wage" is an indicator of what the new, inexperienced worker might expect from the employer. It reflects the average of the wage estimates of the bottom third of the wages of the workers in the scope of the survey for the occupation.
Average Wage: Interchangeable with the word "mean". In this publication, the average wage reflects a "weighted mean". Simply stated, we have summed the hourly wage rate of each employee in a specific occupation and divided the sum by the number of employees. The weighted mean is probably the most commonly used single figure for average occupational wages in an area. However, it is important to note that unusually high or low wages can inflate or deflate the average wage.
Median Wage: This is the wage of the absolute middle worker in the occupation. In other words, if there were 100 workers in the occupation and we ranked the wages from low to high, the median would be the wage of the 50th worker. Thus, one-half of the workers earned wages below the median and one-half of the workers earned wages above the median.
Middle Range: This term is used to describe the range of wages paid to the middle 50 percent of the workers in the specific occupation. It simply means that one-fourth of the employees are earning below the low end of the middle range and one-fourth of the employees are earning more than the high end of the middle range. For example, if there were 1,000 workers in the occupation and we ranked the workers by their wages, the middle range would be the wage of the 250th worker through the wage of the 750th worker. This range provides the user with information regarding the variance of pay within an occupation and a better idea of what the typical employee is earning in that occupation.
Occupation: For this publication, an occupation refers to a collective description of a number of individual jobs performed, with minor variations, in many establishments. Each occupation included in the OES survey is defined so that a respondent or user can determine what type of workers the occupation is intended to include. These occupations and descriptions are based on the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system. See Occupational Descriptions for a listing of occupations, their definitions and unique code.
Code: A unique code number is used in the OES survey to identify the occupation and its relationship to other occupations in the survey. The occupational codes used in the OES survey are based on the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system.
