2024 Oregon Wage Information
August 7, 2024
Understanding how your take home pay compares with others in your field, or someone in a different career, is vitally important. It can inform you about how your work is being valued, and whether you may want to pursue more lucrative career options in the future. Likewise, businesses and hiring managers benefit from knowing the range of wages paid to workers in positions similar to those they are looking to hire in their area of the state. Thanks to survey responses from employers around the state, the Oregon Employment Department publishes wage estimates for over 750 occupations, as well as hundreds of occupations in every region of the state. The 2024 version of Occupational Wage Information is now available.
The annual average wage for all occupations in Oregon was $68,780 in 2024, or $33.06 per hour. Of the occupations with published data, door-to-door sales workers, news and street vendors, and related workers had the lowest average wage of $15.33 per hour. Obstetricians and gynecologists had the highest average wage ($163.29 per hour). Medical specialists like obstetricians and gynecologists have such a high average wage because it takes many years of education and experience in order to perform that level of work.
The cost of living, mix of industries, and available workforce can be different across the state. We may see a higher number of software engineers and folks working in corporate headquarters in Portland, while natural resource jobs may be more concentrated in rural communities, and leisure and hospitality jobs focused near the coast. Wage estimates reflect these differences. The average hourly wage for Multnomah and Washington counties (the Portland-Metro region) was $36.98, and Clackamas County came in at $34.02 in 2024. Jobs in Central Oregon ($30.62) and Southwestern Oregon ($26.91) had lower average wages than jobs around the Portland tri-county area.
Wages in the labor market are the assemblage of what different workers are paid for similar work. The market presses together entry-level workers just getting started with experienced workers with additional education or years of experience. By looking at wage ranges we have a better understanding of how workers are paid when they start a career, or how that may change with more experience.
We provide wage ranges by publishing a series of percentiles for each occupation. A percentile wage shows the percentage of workers in an occupation that earn less than a given wage and the percentage that earn more. In most cases, wages in the 10th or 25th percentile likely reflect workers just entering a career, or who have less education attainment than others performing similar work. To better our understanding of wage ranges let’s look at the wages for some production occupations in Oregon.
Oregon’s production workers make a lot of different products. Food production workers mill the flour we use for Saturday morning pancakes. Assembly workers can put together anything from a manufactured home to helping anglers by putting together their next fishing boat. Production workers specialize in manufacturing products ranging from metals manufacturing, wood products, electronics, to vehicle assembly. Pay for these jobs can be influenced by the products being made, and the complexity of the equipment used to produce them.
Many production jobs do not require much experience to get started. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, most production workers (52%) in Oregon have up to a high school diploma or equivalent. Those production jobs with a higher share of workers with some postsecondary education typically pay higher wages. General assembly occupations and food batch makers have lower wage ranges, at the entry and experienced level, than occupations like welders and those working on computer-controlled tools like a CNC lathe. Welders are a good example of seeing a premium for skill because there are many types of welding and welders can skill up by going through certified apprenticeships.
Wages can also be different based on what is being produced. According to estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, production workers making wood products in Oregon have a higher entry-level wage ($17.42) than what we see in transportation equipment manufacturing ($17.02). However, we also see transportation equipment manufacturing have higher top-end wages ($37.47) than what we see in wood product manufacturing ($28.89). By looking at these wage ranges we can see what types of manufacturing jobs may be more attractive for workers just getting into the labor market, and what employers may be more attractive for more experienced production workers.
Occupational wage information allows us to better understand what people get paid for the work they do, and how that may differ across the state. To get additional wage estimates for hundreds of careers please visit QualityInfo.org.