Earnings in nine largest occupations, May 2006

In May, 2006 over ten million people—about 8.2 percent of all employees—were employed in three occupations: retail salespersons, cashiers, and office clerks, general.

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Over three million people were employed in each of these three occupations. Six other occupations had employment of over two million: combined food preparation and serving workers, including fast food; registered nurses; laborers and freight, stock, and material movers, hand; waiters and waitresses; customer service representatives; and janitors and cleaners, except maids and housekeeping cleaners.

Three of these large occupations—combined food preparation and serving workers, including fast food; waiters and waitresses, and cashiers—had mean hourly wages of less than $10.00 per hour.

One of these nine large occupations had wages above the all-employee average of $18.84: registered nurses, with mean wages of $28.71 per hour.

These data are from the Occupational Employment Statistics program. To learn more about occupational employment and earnings, see "Chart book: Occupational Employment and Wages, May 2006," May 2008, Bulletin 2702.