Recent Detailed Industry Employment and Wages in Josephine County
September 29, 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. These data include only jobs covered by unemployment insurance, so don’t represent all jobs, as many self-employed and other jobs not covered by unemployment insurance are excluded from these figures. When statewide employment is reported under a single county without a Multiple Worksite Report, we can’t accurately allocate jobs to their actual locations, which can lead to over or under counting in county or industry level data.
Starting at the onion skin, where we get the entire covered employment picture, in March 2026 Josephine County had 26,905 private-sector jobs with an average weekly wage of $960. This series is titled “high level” on the BLS data viewer tool and captures all covered employment (payroll) jobs for that quarter and provides some industry break-out data. The largest industries by employment were education and health services (10,307); trade, transportation and utilities (4,901); and leisure and hospitality (3,122).
Location quotients (LQs) 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. The local industry with the highest location quotient was education and health services (1.97). Financial activities, and professional and business services industries had relatively less employment concentration in Josephine County than the U.S.
The highest average weekly wages were also in financial activities ($1,777) and professional and business services ($1,286) – two sectors with relatively less employment concentration in Josephine County. Manufacturing ($1,074) paid just above the all-industry private-sector average weekly wage.
As we peel back another layer of the industry employment onion in Josephine County, at the 2-digit level of detail, about 93% of total payroll employment is published, with some sectors suppressed due to confidentiality. Health care and social assistance had the most jobs in March 2026, at 10,051. The next two largest sectors in March 2026 were retail trade (3,919) and accommodation and food services (2,890). As this is quarterly data, the total for accommodation and food services would be higher if we were looking at the third quarter, or summer employment. Even so, during first quarter 2026, Josephine County accommodation and food services had about 1.06 times the share of employment as the U.S. Retail trade had a higher share of jobs locally with a LQ of 1.32. Both industries pay relatively lower average weekly wages of $752 and $472, respectively. Having a larger share of employment in lower-paying industries is one factor in Josephine County’s lower all-industry average wage compared with Oregon or the U.S.
Slicing deeper into this data, the next layer is the 3-digit level of industry detail – like the detail available on QualityInfo.org. Further details require some suppressions, resulting in about 88% of total payroll employment by industry published for Josephine County. Accommodation and food service employment is split out into food services and drinking places (2,570 jobs) and accommodations (320 jobs) during March 2026. In other industries details are lost. For example, within the health care and social assistance sector, there were 2,267 jobs in ambulatory health care services and 5,078 jobs in social assistance, but no additional health services jobs such as in hospitals are published. Support activities for agriculture and forestry (198 jobs) and forestry and logging (50 jobs) show a small share of total employment, but large location quotients of 3.05 and 5.94, respectively – which makes sense considering most of the U.S. has a small share or no jobs in these sectors.
Slicing 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 payroll jobs are published for Josephine County. Here we find some interesting differences between wages within the retail trade sector. Overall, retail trade had an average weekly wage of $752. However, some sectors within retail trade paid better such as automotive dealers ($1,374), electronics and appliance retailers ($1,140), and other motor vehicle dealers ($1,056). For the manufacturing sector, we find that navigational, measuring, electromedical, and control instruments manufacturing had the highest average weekly wage in Josephine County ($1,891) among those published at the 4-digit level.
In the professional and technical sector, lower LQs were found in computer systems design and related services (0.1); architectural, engineering, and related services (0.18); management, scientific, and technical consulting services (0.2); legal services (0.32); and accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping, payroll services (0.79).
At the 5-digit level of industry detail, slightly less than 70% of total employment is published by industry in Josephine County. Here, Josephine County veterinary services are separated from “all other professional and scientific services”, showing nine veterinary services firms with about 130 jobs that had an average weekly wage of $1,113 in first quarter 2026 in Josephine County.
Finally, down to the core of most detailed information published by industry at the county level – at the 6-digit level, published series cover about 65% of payroll jobs. Within this level we see that limited services restaurants had 1,144 jobs during March 2026 and full-service restaurants had fewer jobs at 857. Average weekly wages were $505 in full-service establishments compared with $453 for limited-service restaurants.
There are many layers to this employment by industry data, much like an onion or an ogre. I hope this summary of the information available encourages you to explore the county-level data in your industry or sector of interest
