Hourly vs Annual Trade Wages: Reading BLS's 2,080-Hour Conversion

An hourly rate worked out on a legal pad

A foreman has a journeyman candidate across the table and a number written on a legal pad. Last week he pulled the electrician wage page on bls.gov, saw an annual figure, divided it by what he thought was the right number of weeks, and landed on an hourly rate. The candidate, who has run 50-hour weeks for two years at his current shop, does the math in his head and asks a simple question: "Is that straight time, or does that include the overtime I'm used to?" The foreman realizes he does not know. The BLS figure assumed one thing. The candidate's paycheck assumed another. The offer goes out anyway, and it comes back declined.

That gap is not a trick of the data. It comes from a convention: BLS expresses hourly pay as an annual figure using a fixed-length year, and almost no trade crew works a fixed-length year. Once you see where the conversion starts and stops, you can move between hourly and annual pay without overpaying or lowballing.

This article explains the BLS 2,080-hour conversion, shows what it leaves out, and tells you which number belongs in an hourly offer.

What the BLS 2,080-hour conversion actually does

The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes occupational wages through its Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program. In its methodology, annual wage is the hourly wage multiplied by 2,080 hours (BLS OEWS news release). That number is simply 40 hours a week for 52 weeks.

So the annual figure on an OEWS page is a convention, not a measurement of how much any tradesperson earned last year. It describes a worker paid for a full-time, straight-time year with no unpaid weeks and no overtime. OEWS reports wages at 12 intervals, each shown as an hourly rate with a corresponding annual rate at 2,080 hours (BLS OEWS news release, May 2025). The data itself is public domain, and the current reference period is May 2025, released May 15, 2026, so always note the vintage when you quote a figure.

Two practical consequences follow. First, the hourly and annual columns on an OEWS table are the same number expressed two ways, so neither is more "real" than the other. Second, the annual column is only as useful as the match between that 2,080-hour assumption and the schedule you are actually hiring for.

Hourly vs annual wage in the trades: converting both directions

The math is short enough to do on the back of a work order.

• Hourly to annual: hourly rate × 2,080.
• Annual to hourly: annual figure ÷ 2,080.

Here are two round-number illustrations. They are teaching examples, not market data.

• A $30.00 hourly rate × 2,080 = $62,400 a year.
• A $65,000 annual figure ÷ 2,080 = $31.25 an hour.

If you are reading a figure from a BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook page, such as the electrician median of $62,350 a year (BLS OOH, May 2024), divide by 2,080 to see the straight-time hourly rate it implies. Do that before you compare it with an hourly offer, and compare like with like: an annual median against an annual offer, or an hourly median against an hourly offer.

One more habit saves arguments. When a candidate quotes an annual number, ask whether it includes overtime. When you quote one, say which hours it assumes.

Where the 2,080-hour year breaks down for crews

A trade shop's real calendar rarely matches 40 hours for 52 weeks. Three patterns come up constantly.

Overtime. Suppose a crew works 45-hour weeks all year and is paid time-and-a-half for hours past 40 (an assumption for this illustration; check overtime rules with your state labor department and the U.S. Department of Labor). At a round $30.00 base rate, a week pays 40 × $30.00 + 5 × $45.00 = $1,425. Over 52 weeks that is $74,100, compared with the $62,400 the 2,080-hour convention gives for the same base rate. The base rate did not change. The annual total did.

Seasonal and weather gaps. If a crew averages 1,800 paid hours in a year because of slow winters or weather days, the same $30.00 rate produces $54,000. If it averages 1,500, it produces $45,000. Again, these are round-number illustrations, but the direction is the point: fewer paid hours pull annual earnings below what the 2,080-hour figure implies, even when the hourly rate is competitive.

Short weeks and project gaps. Waiting on inspections, materials, or the next phase can leave a crew with 32-hour weeks that nobody planned. The hourly rate holds. The annual number does not.

The 2,080-hour figure is therefore a clean yardstick for comparing the rate for a job across occupations, states, or metros. It is a poor forecast of what one worker takes home.

Which number belongs in an hourly offer

If you are hiring someone to be paid by the hour, lead with the hourly rate and benchmark it against the hourly columns in the OEWS data. That is the number the worker will see on every check, and it avoids implying a guaranteed annual income that depends on hours you do not control.

Then, if you want to give the candidate a sense of annual pay, show the arithmetic rather than a single total:

1. State the straight-time hourly rate.
2. State the expected weekly hours and when overtime pay starts.
3. Show the 2,080-hour annual equivalent as a reference point, labelled as straight time.

If you are hiring someone on a salary, flip it. Anchor to the annual figure, then convert with ÷ 2,080 to check that the implied hourly rate is competitive for the hours you actually expect. A salaried foreman who regularly works long weeks has a lower effective hourly rate than the conversion shows.

Where an offer sits against the market also depends on which statistic you compare it with. Our guides on mean vs median wage in the trades and wage percentiles explained for trades cover that, and how to write a trade offer letter shows how to state hours, rate, and overtime clearly in writing.

Putting hourly vs annual wage trades BLS data to use

You can use this in about ten minutes with a free federal dataset.

1. Find your trade and area in the OEWS tables. If you have not used them before, how to read BLS OEWS data for the trades walks through the layout. Note the release vintage.
2. Pick the percentile you want to anchor to. OEWS publishes the 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, and 90th percentiles, so decide whether you are hiring at the middle of the market or above it.
3. Read the hourly column for an hourly role, or the annual column for a salaried one, and remember the annual column is the hourly value × 2,080.
4. Adjust for your real schedule. If your crews run regular overtime or lose weeks to the season, write down the paid hours you realistically expect and run the arithmetic on that, not on 2,080.
5. Turn your decision into a range. How to build a salary band for the trades explains how to set a minimum, midpoint, and maximum from a percentile anchor.

BLS and O*NET are free, and you can do all of this by hand. If you would rather skip the lookup, the Trade Offer Check Calculator takes an offer for a metro and shows where it lands against the cited OEWS percentiles. If you are pricing a bid rather than an offer, the Loaded Labor Rate & Burden Calculator starts from a cited base wage and lets you add your own burden.

Quick reference

Annual wage in OEWS = hourly wage × 2,080. It is straight time for 40 hours a week over 52 weeks, with no overtime and no unpaid weeks.

Keep these points in mind before you send the offer:

• The annual column is a standard conversion. It is not what a particular worker earned.
• Overtime raises annual pay above the 2,080-hour figure. Seasonal and short weeks lower it.
• For hourly roles, quote the hourly rate and label any annual equivalent as straight time.
• Always cite the data vintage next to any wage you quote.
• For overtime rules in your state, confirm with your state labor department.

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