The Working Class in Austin by Numbers

Every once in a while I find myself doing my own little research projects for purely my own self-indulgence. This is one of them and maybe others will find it useful for your own purposes. (Still doing research on the racial, ethnic, gender etc demographics.)

• 555,010 Austinites earn less than $50,000 a year (65 percent of the workforce
• Union membership is a pitiful 2.5 percent half that of Texas's 4.5 percent average (which is less than half of the national average).
• 78,800 Austinites earn less than $21,000 a year.
• 61,370 Austinites make more than $100,000 a year.
• Real income has risen by 2.5 percent in the past four years—but housing prices have increased by 40 percent.
• 54.4 percent of the working class in Austin rent their housing.
• 16 percent of Ausinites work in traditional “blue collar” occupations (construction, warehousing, transportation, and manufacturing).
• The fast growing occupation by industry is logistics (warehousing and transportation) the sector created more than 6,000 jobs last year.
• Tech workers only make up 6 percent of the workforce. Food service makes up 10.6 percent in comparison.
• The State of Texas is the largest employer.
• Education and healthcare employment are the two biggest employment sectors by industry.
• Managers makes up 5.3% of employment, interestingly the exact national average (which I do not include here along with rentiers, the self-employed, the independently wealthy, etc for obvious reasons).

Employment by Industry, Austin Metro Area

	2013	2014	2015	2015	2017
Total non-farm	884,000	923,100	963,300	1,000,500	1,032,600
Construction, natural resources & mining	46,000	50,700	55,300	58,800	61,500
Manufacturing	57,200	57,200	55,600	55,800	57,100
Wholesale trade	43,700	45,300	48,100	49,500	51,500
Retail trade	93,800	97,600	100,300	104,000	105,400
Transportation, warehousing, & utilities	14,800	15,600	16,400	18,400	20,200
Information	23,900	25,300	27,700	28,900	30,100
Financial activities	49,300	51,900	54,100	56,800	59,700
Professional & business services	139,300	150,400	161,000	169,100	176,300
Educational & health Services	102,500	106,400	111,600	115,600	120,300
Leisure & hospitality	100,600	107,100	115,500	122,000	125,900
Other services	40,600	42,300	42,700	43,800	44,900
Government	172,200	173,200	175,200	178,100	179,800

Employment By Occupation and Mean Hourly Wages

Occupational groups	Percent of total employment		Mean hourly wage
	National	Austin	National	Austin
Total, all occupations	100.0	100.0	$24.98	$25.87*
Management	5.3	5.3	58.44	59.04
Business and financial operations	5.3	6.3*	36.98	35.61*
Computer and mathematical	3.0	6.0*	44.01	44.22
Architecture and engineering	1.8	2.6*	42.01	44.61*
Life, physical, and social science	0.8	0.9	36.62	33.16*
Community and social service	1.5	1.1*	23.69	22.96
Legal	0.8	1.1*	52.25	46.85*
Education, training, and library	6.1	5.8	27.22	26.48
Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media	1.3	1.8*	28.74	29.76
Healthcare practitioners	6.0	4.6*	39.42	37.58*
Healthcare support	2.8	2.1*	15.57	16.74*
Protective service	2.4	2.1*	23.36	23.23
Food service	9.2	10.6*	12.30	12.64*
Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance	3.1	2.9*	14.43	13.34*
Personal care and service	3.8	2.9*	13.51	12.84*
Sales and related	10.0	11.0*	20.09	23.22*
Office and administrative support	15.1	16.9*	18.75	19.04*
Farming, fishing, and forestry	0.3	0.1*	14.49	14.99
Construction and extraction	4.1	4.3	24.62	20.79*
Installation, maintenance, and repair	3.9	3.4*	23.54	22.38*
Production	6.3	3.6*	18.84	17.98*
Transportation and material moving	7.1	4.6*	18.41	16.60*