BLS Wage & Salary Data — Occupational Employment Statistics (OEWS)

Look up official U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) wage and employment data for any occupation, geographic area, and industry. Data comes from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey — the authoritative source for salary benchmarking in the U.S.

What You Get

Each run returns a record containing:

Field	Description
occupationTitle	Occupation name (e.g. "Software Developers")
areaTitle	Geographic area (e.g. "National", "California")
industryTitle	Industry sector (e.g. "All Industries")
year	Data year
employment	Total workers employed in this category
annualMedianWage	Annual median salary (50th percentile) in USD
annualMeanWage	Annual mean salary in USD
annual10th	Annual 10th percentile wage
annual25th	Annual 25th percentile wage
annual75th	Annual 75th percentile wage
annual90th	Annual 90th percentile wage
hourlyMedianWage	Hourly median wage
hourlyMeanWage	Hourly mean wage
hourly10th / hourly25th / hourly75th / hourly90th	Hourly percentile wages

Who Uses This

• HR and compensation teams benchmarking salaries against market data
• Recruiters researching realistic pay ranges before posting jobs
• Job seekers validating offers and negotiating compensation
• Consultants and analysts building compensation models
• Researchers studying labor market trends and wage inequality

How to Use It

Step 1: Find Your Occupation Code (SOC)

The BLS uses Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) codes. Common examples:

Occupation	SOC Code
All Occupations	000000
Software Developers	151252
Data Scientists	152051
Registered Nurses	291141
Physicians (All)	291064
Lawyer	231011
Financial Managers	113031
General Managers	111021
Accountants and Auditors	132011
Market Research Analysts	131161

Enter the code with or without a hyphen (e.g. 15-1252 or 151252).

Step 2: Choose an Area Code

Area	Code
National (all U.S.)	0000000
California	S0600000
Texas	S4800000
New York	S3600000
Florida	S1200000
Washington	S5300000
Illinois	S1700000
Massachusetts	S2500000
Georgia	S1300000
Colorado	S0800000

For Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) codes, refer to the BLS OES area definitions.

Step 3: Choose an Industry Code (optional)

Leave blank or use 000000 to get data across all industries. To narrow by sector:

Industry	Code
All Industries	000000
Information	510000
Finance and Insurance	520000
Professional/Scientific/Technical Services	540000
Health Care and Social Assistance	620000
Educational Services	610000
Manufacturing	310000
Government	910000

Step 4: Set the Year

BLS OEWS data is published annually each May. The most recent release covers 2023 data (published May 2024). Valid years: 2014–2023.

Example Output

{
  "occupationCode": "151252",
  "occupationTitle": "Software Developers",
  "areaCode": "0000000",
  "areaTitle": "National",
  "industryCode": "000000",
  "industryTitle": "All Industries",
  "year": "2023",
  "employment": "1847900",
  "annualMedianWage": "132270",
  "annualMeanWage": "138980",
  "hourlyMedianWage": "63.59",
  "hourlyMeanWage": "66.82",
  "annual10th": "74580",
  "annual25th": "101000",
  "annual75th": "168870",
  "annual90th": "208000",
  "hourly10th": "35.86",
  "hourly25th": "48.56",
  "hourly75th": "81.19",
  "hourly90th": "100.00"
}

BLS API Rate Limits

Without a BLS API key, this actor can fetch data for one occupation/area/industry combination per run within the free tier. The BLS rate limit resets every 24 hours.

To increase limits, register for a free BLS API key at data.bls.gov/registrationEngine and enter it in the apiKey field. This raises the daily quota from 25 to 500 series per day.

Data Notes

• Wages marked * indicate the wage is at or above the top-coded value ($239,200/year as of 2023).
• Wages marked # indicate the hourly wage is below $10/hour.
• Not all occupation/area/industry combinations are published. Very small or suppressed cells may return no data.
• OES data is not seasonally adjusted.
• Employment figures are in thousands for broad groups; individual occupation counts are actual numbers.

Source

Data is sourced directly from the BLS Public Data API v2 — the official BLS developer API. No scraping; all public government data.