Recent Detailed Industry Employment and Wages in Coos County
September 22, 2026There are two main sources for industry employment data at the county level. Monthly estimates are published under the Current Employment Statistics (CES) program. The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages program (QCEW) publishes quarterly data resulting from employer’s tax records. The QCEW data are best considered a point-in-time snapshot of employment by industry sector. Changes in unemployment insurance coverage requirements, what industry code a particular business is assigned, or even what county or location the employment for a business is counted may change. These are some of the reasons the CES data are best for analyzing trends in industry employment for a specific geography over time.
Both of these data sets are readily searchable and are located under the “tools” tab at QualityInfo.org. The QCEW data are at: Employment & Wages by Industry (QCEW), with the most detailed data by county available at the 3-digit level of detail quarterly. The more current estimates of industry employment at the county level can be found at: Current Employment Estimates (CES) and are usually published to the broad sector level of detail.
In the movie Shek, Shrek explains to Donkey that ogres are like onions. “They have layers,” he exclaims. The same might be said about employment by industry statistics. If you want even more granular industry employment and wage statistics at the county level, you can peel back more layers of that information onion to find more precise levels of detail. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes data for many industries down to the 4-, 5-, and 6-digit level of industry detail. These data can be found at Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.
In this article we’ll highlight a few data points in this exhaustive information series. Starting at the onion skin, where we get the entire covered employment picture: In March 2026, Coos County had 16,739 private-sector jobs with an average weekly wage of $950. This series is titled “high level” on the BLS data viewer tool and captures all covered employment (payroll) jobs for that quarter, including some industry break-outs. The largest industries by employment were trade, transportation and utilities (4,053); education and health services (3,356); and leisure and hospitality (2,967).
Location quotients are also provided, showing the relative concentration of employment in an industry for a particular area compared with the U.S. An industry with a location quotient of 1.0 for a local area would have the same share of jobs in that sector as the overall U.S. economy. A location quotient of 2.0 would mean that there is double the percent of employment in that industry in a local area, compared with the share of employment in that industry in the U.S. Industries with the highest location quotients were natural resources and mining (2.69), and leisure and hospitality (1.23). Information, financial activities, and manufacturing had relatively less employment concentration in Coos County than the U.S.
The highest average weekly wages were in manufacturing ($1,290); construction ($1,272); financial activities ($1,250); and natural resources and mining ($1,244), paying above the all-private industry average in Coos County.
As we peel back another layer of the industry employment onion in Coos County, at the sector level (2-digit level of detail), about 92% of total payroll employment is published, with a few sectors suppressed due to confidentiality. Health care and social assistance had the most jobs in March 2026, at 3,278. The next two largest sectors in March 2026 were accommodation and food services (2,836) and retail trade (2,829). As this is quarterly data, the total for accommodation and food services would be more if we were looking at the third quarter, or summer employment. Even so, during first quarter 2026 Coos County accommodation and food services had about 1.4 times the share of employment as the U.S. Retail trade a higher share of jobs locally with a location quotient of 1.28. Both industries pay relatively lower average weekly wages of $699 and $715, respectively. Having a larger share of employment in lower-paying industries is one factor in Coos County’s lower all-industry average wage compared with Oregon or the U.S.
Slicing deeper into this data, the next layer available is the 3-digit industry level – like the detail available on QualityInfo.org. Further details require further suppressions, resulting in about 90% of total payroll employment by industry published for Coos County. At this level of detail, we can see that accommodation and food service employment split out by food services and drinking places (1,644 jobs) and accommodations (1,192 jobs) during March 2026. In other industries details are lost. For example, within the health care and social assistance sector, this shows about 1,468 jobs in ambulatory health care services, but no additional health services jobs such as in hospitals are published. Forest and logging (306 jobs) and fishing, hunting, and trapping (48 jobs) show a small share of total employment, but large location quotients of 48.8 and 48.2 – which makes sense considering most of the U.S. has a small share or no jobs in these sectors. These data include only jobs covered by unemployment insurance, and numerous fishing jobs fall outside this coverage.
Carving into what the BLS publishes that is not available on QualityInfo.org – detail at the 4-, 5- and 6-digit level reveals more specifics about some sectors and obscures a greater share of total jobs. At the 4-digit level, about 80% of total jobs are published for Coos County. Here we find some interesting differences between wages within the retail trade sector. Overall, retail trade had an average weekly wage of $715. However, some sectors within retail trade paid better such as automotive dealers ($1,401), other motor vehicle dealers ($1,136), and electronic and appliance retailers ($1,056). Being such a scenic part of the country, it’s easy to see why traveler accommodation (4.48) and also recreational vehicle parks and recreational camps (3.36) would have higher location quotients. Highway, street, and bridge construction (4.38 location quotient) also had a notable share of jobs within Coos County. In the professional and technical sector, lower concentrations were found in architectural, engineering, and related services (0.5); computer systems design and related services (0.09); management, scientific, and technical consulting services (0.19); accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping, payroll services (0.45); and legal services (0.36).
At the 5-digit industry level, we find slightly less than 57% of total employment published by industry in Coos County. Here we can find employment and payroll data for Coos County veterinary services separated from “all other professional and scientific services”, where the seven veterinary services firms totaled about 100 jobs with an average weekly wage of $963 in first quarter 2026 in Coos County.
Finally, at the 6-digit industry level, we find information on just less than half of payroll jobs. Within this level we see that limited services restaurants had 603 jobs during March 2026 and full-service restaurants had more jobs at 716. Average weekly wages were $510 in full-service establishments compared with $449 for limited-service restaurants.
There are many layers to this employment by industry data, much like an onion or an ogre. I hope this encourages you to explore the county-level data in your industry or sector of interest.
