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BLS OEWSBLS Occupational Employment & Wage Statistics (OEWS)
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · Tier-1 · research-only (never on individual profiles)
BLS Occupational Employment & Wage Statistics (OEWS, formerly OES) publishes employment levels and wage estimates for ~830 occupations across U.S. states and metropolitan areas. The canonical source for occupational wage benchmarking.
How this source shows up on Fonteum.
Tier-1 research-only context for /research pages that discuss workforce supply, wage benchmarks, or per-capita density. OEWS data appears in study commentary and methodology footnotes — it does NOT attach to individual provider profiles.
What this source does NOT mean
OEWS measures markets, not individuals. A state-level mean wage is a market signal; it is not a quality measurement, an income claim about any specific provider, or a recommendation.
Research and data questions this source supports.
- Pull median annual wages for any BLS occupation code by metropolitan area — the same data workforce analytics vendors sell at $10K+ per seat.
- Build a compensation benchmarking tool for healthcare occupations using BLS OEWS data as the federal reference.
- Power a labor market analysis that maps healthcare provider density (NPPES) against occupational employment and wage data (BLS OEWS) by geography.
- Support a private equity portfolio review with BLS wage benchmarks for the healthcare workforce across a target's operating states.
- Compare healthcare occupation employment and wages across metropolitan statistical areas for a workforce strategy study.
Dataset size: ~800 occupations × 600 geographic areas annually
What we can’t infer from this source.
- OEWS is a survey-based estimate. Confidence intervals exist; the mean is not a precise number for every county.
- Wage estimates are gross of self-employed contractors in many SOC codes; medians may shift on full revisions.
- Tier-1 — never rendered on individual provider profiles.
Authority, license, refresh cadence.
Authority
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Tier
Tier-1 · research-only (never on individual profiles)
Refresh cadence
Annual — BLS publishes OEWS once per year, typically late spring.
License
U.S. government public-domain data. Free to use with attribution.
Official URL
Attribution requirement
Source: BLS OEWS · Vintage {YYYY}
What the source allows.
U.S. government public-domain works. BLS publishes OEWS as bulk CSV + Excel; redistribution permitted with attribution. Fonteum pulls state-level + metropolitan-area summaries only and never imputes per-individual wages.
What a single field looks like in the graph.
A worked example. Every field surfaced from this source carries this shape of provenance line — source · last checked · display rule · confidence (when applicable).
Field
State-level employment estimate (research-only)
Sample value
Dermatologists in TX: 1,510 (May 2024 vintage)
Provenance line
Source: BLS OEWS · State-level employment table · Vintage May 2024 · Display rule: research-only commentary, never on profiles
Official API, bulk download, and Fonteum endpoints.
Official API / download
Bulk download
Fonteum surface
Common questions about BLS OEWS.
- What is BLS OEWS and what occupational data does it contain?
- The Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey produces annual estimates of employment and wages for over 800 occupations across approximately 600 geographic areas. For healthcare, OEWS provides employment counts and wage percentiles (10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, 90th) for occupations including physicians, nurse practitioners, registered nurses, physical therapists, and healthcare administrators.
- How often does BLS OEWS update?
- BLS publishes OEWS data annually, typically in May for the prior reference year. For example, the May 2025 release contains data collected during 2024. Fonteum ingests the annual OEWS file each May via an Inngest cron and attests the SHA-256 hash to the provenance chain.
- Where can I download BLS OEWS wage data?
- BLS publishes OEWS data at bls.gov/oes/tables.htm as downloadable Excel and CSV files covering national, state, and metropolitan area estimates. All BLS data is U.S. government public-domain — free to download and redistribute with attribution.
- What is an SOC code and how does it relate to healthcare occupations?
- Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) codes are the federal taxonomy for occupations used across BLS datasets. Healthcare occupations start with SOC major group 29 (Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations) and 31 (Healthcare Support Occupations). For example, SOC 29-1062 covers Family Medicine Physicians; SOC 29-1141 covers Registered Nurses. OEWS wages are indexed by SOC code and area.
- What is the difference between BLS OEWS and BLS QCEW?
- OEWS provides occupational-level employment and wage estimates from an establishment survey — useful for knowing what a specific job pays in a specific metro. QCEW (Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages) provides industry-level employment and wage totals from unemployment insurance records — useful for knowing total employment in a healthcare industry sector in a county. Fonteum uses both in research contexts.
Where this source already shows up.
Related sources in the graph
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