When Does BLS Release New Wage Data? The 2026 OEWS Schedule

Your offer is priced against data that has an expiration date

Picture this: you made a solid journeyman electrician offer three months ago — $29 an hour, right where you thought the market sat. The candidate said no, took two days to decide, and you still lost them. Your foreman heard through the trade grapevine that the other shop offered $31.

You weren't wrong in January. You might just be working off last year's numbers — and in a labor market where private-industry wages and salaries rose 3.4% year-over-year as of March 2026 (Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Cost Index), a one-year lag on your benchmark is real money.

This article gives you the one thing most trade employers don't know: exactly when the BLS updates its wage data, what that cadence means for your hiring calendar, and how to make sure you're benchmarking against current numbers — not last cycle's.

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What the OEWS survey actually is (and why it's the number that matters)

The Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey is the Bureau of Labor Statistics' annual snapshot of wages across more than 800 detailed occupations — everything from journeyman electricians (SOC 47-2111) to HVAC mechanics (SOC 49-9021) to structural ironworkers (SOC 47-2221). SOC stands for Standard Occupational Classification — it's the federal job-code system that lets you compare apples to apples across employers, geographies, and datasets.

The OEWS is the source behind every wage figure you've seen quoted on career sites, in industry reports, and in BLS's own Occupational Outlook Handbook. When someone cites "the median electrician wage," they're almost always pulling from this survey.

Here's what makes it uniquely useful for a trade employer: the OEWS publishes wages at the national, state, and metropolitan area level, broken into percentile bands — 10th, 25th, 50th (median), 75th, and 90th. That spread matters. The difference between the 25th-percentile HVAC rate and the 75th-percentile rate in the same metro can be $15–$20 an hour. Knowing where on that curve you need to sit to win the candidate in front of you is the whole game.

For a deeper walk through how to read those percentile columns, see our guide on how to read BLS OEWS data for trade hiring.

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The OEWS release cadence: one snapshot per year

The OEWS is not a monthly or quarterly report. It publishes once a year, and the mechanics behind that single release are worth understanding.

The reference date is May. BLS collects wage data across six semiannual survey panels over a rolling three-year period; each panel uses a May reference date. That means the wages reported in any given OEWS release reflect what employers were paying during the May of that reference year, not the publication month.

The sample is enormous. Each semiannual panel draws roughly 186,000–189,000 establishments; across the full three-year rolling window, the survey covers approximately 1.1 million establishments and about 84.7 million jobs — roughly 55% of total national employment. That scale is why the OEWS is the authoritative benchmark: it isn't a poll or a crowdsourced average. It's a statistically engineered sample of actual payrolls.

Publication comes roughly 10–11 months after the May reference date. The May 2024 OEWS data, for example, was released in early 2025. The May 2025 data — the most current cycle — is expected to publish in late winter or early spring 2026. [VERIFY: Confirm the exact May 2025 OEWS publication date at bls.gov/oes before publishing this article and replace this placeholder.] BLS announces the release on its news schedule at bls.gov/schedule/news_release/ocwage.htm.

What that lag means for your hiring calendar: If you're making offers in Q1 or Q2 of a given year, you're likely still benchmarking against data with a May reference date from nearly a year prior — during which wages in the construction and extraction trades have continued to move. The Employment Cost Index registered private-industry wages and salaries at +3.4% year-over-year as of March 2026. A one-year lag on a $60,000 benchmark role is a potential $2,000+ gap before you've written a single offer letter.

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Why the annual cadence hits trade employers harder than most

Trade wages don't drift — they step. When a new OEWS release lands, it often captures a meaningful jump driven by apprenticeship completions, union contract settlements, or regional demand spikes (a major infrastructure project coming online, a data-center buildout pulling HVAC and electrical labor into a metro). Consider the context:

• The construction and extraction trades already post a group median of $58,360/yr (BLS, May 2024) — well above the all-occupation median of $49,500. The premium reflects real scarcity.
• Electrician employment (818,700 jobs nationally as of 2024) is projected to grow 9% through 2034 — roughly three times the economy-wide average of 3.1%. That growth rate compresses the supply side every single year.
• The construction industry needs an estimated 439,000 net new workers in 2025 and 349,000 in 2026 just to keep pace with growth and retirements (Associated Builders and Contractors).

When demand accelerates that fast, a single release cycle can represent a material market shift. Using May 2023 data to price a May 2025 hire isn't just imprecise — it's two full labor-market cycles behind.

To see how much trade wages have moved between the last two releases, read our year-over-year trade wage changes breakdown.

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The current benchmarks: what the most recent release shows

Until the May 2025 OEWS data is confirmed live at bls.gov/oes, the figures below reflect the May 2024 OEWS release — the most recent available at time of writing. Check bls.gov/oes for the current release before using these in an offer.

Occupation	SOC Code	National Median (May 2024)	10th Pct	90th Pct
Electricians	47-2111	$62,350/yr	$39,430	$106,030
Plumbers, Pipefitters & Steamfitters	47-2152	$62,970/yr	—	—
HVAC Mechanics & Installers	49-9021	$59,810/yr	$39,130	$91,020
Welders, Cutters, Solderers & Brazers	51-4121	$51,000/yr	$38,130	$75,850
Sheet Metal Workers	47-2211	$60,850/yr	—	—
Structural Iron & Steel Workers	47-2221	$62,700/yr	$42,000	$107,520

Source: BLS OEWS, May 2024. National figures only — local rates vary. Visit bls.gov/oes for state and metro detail.

These are national medians. The median is the midpoint — half of all workers in that occupation earn above it, half below. If you're hiring in a high-cost metro or a supply-constrained market, the relevant number is almost certainly the state or metro figure, not the national one. Where a metro cell is too small to publish reliably (BLS suppresses estimates based on fewer than 10 workers in an occupation), fall back to the state figure. For full trade-specific wage benchmarking guidance, including how to work with percentile bands and salary ranges, that article walks through the method step by step.

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How to stay ahead of the annual release cycle

Waiting for the OEWS drop once a year and then bulk-updating your salary bands is the minimum viable approach. Here's how to do it without losing a hire in the gap:

1. Bookmark the BLS release schedule. The OEWS release date is published months in advance at bls.gov/schedule/news_release/ocwage.htm. Put it on your calendar the moment it posts.

2. Use the Employment Cost Index as a real-time signal. The ECI (bls.gov/eci) publishes quarterly and tracks wage growth across private industry. It won't give you trade-specific percentiles, but a quarter showing +3–4% growth tells you your May-anchored benchmarks are eroding faster than expected.

3. Treat national medians as a floor, not a target. The OEWS national median for electricians ($62,350, May 2024) is the starting point. Your state or metro figure — and the 75th-percentile mark for competitive hires — is where your offer strategy lives.

4. Know when BLS suppresses a number. For smaller metros or niche trade sub-codes, BLS may not publish a figure if the sample is too thin. That's not a gap in your process — it's a signal to move up to the state level and say so explicitly in your internal comp review.

If you want to see how raw BLS data compares to using a purpose-built wage tool, our breakdown of free BLS data vs. a wage tool covers the tradeoffs honestly.

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Don't let the calendar cost you the hire

The BLS OEWS is the most credible wage data available to a trade employer — free, statistically rigorous, covering 800+ occupations down to state and metro level. The catch is that it's a once-a-year release with a multi-month lag, and in a labor market moving at 3–4% annually, that lag has a dollar figure attached to it.

The employers who win competitive hires aren't necessarily paying more — they're pricing more precisely and updating faster.

Want a heads-up the moment the May 2025 OEWS data goes live? Subscribe to the SkilledMarkets newsletter and we'll flag the release, pull the key trade medians, and show you what moved — so your next offer is priced against this cycle, not last year's.

Subscribe to the newsletter — or if you're ready to turn the data into offer-ready salary bands right now, see how our wage tool works for trade contractors.