Want to know who makes bank in the Fresno region? See jobs in our interactive database
If your parents wanted you to become a doctor … well, maybe they were on to something.
Physicians across Fresno County, including family medicine, general internal medicine and others are all among the highest earners, with average annual salaries in excess of $225,000. The average annual earnings for dentists in Fresno County was about $207,000 per year.
Data from the Occupational Employment and Wages Statistics (OEWS) program, published by the California Employment Development Department for the first quarter of 2022, shows that the average annual wage across all occupations was about $56,000, or about $26.95 per hour.
The survey encompasses more than 375,000 workers in 21 broad categories and more than 550 occupational or job titles.
The data shows the wide disparities in pay for different jobs within Fresno County, as well as how the scales tip heavily toward the lower end of the broader pay range.
You can use The Fresno Bee’s interactive database below to discover the average hourly wage, average annual wage, and low-, median- and high-end wages within each of about 550 different occupations or job titles.
The highest paid occupational category in the OEWS survey in Fresno County were management occupations, from chief executives to educational administrators to managers across a wide range of industries. The average hourly wage for the category is $54.57 per hour or more than $113,000 per year. CEOs received the highest average salary in the category at more than $195,000.
Overall, only 25% of Fresno County workers in occupations covered by the survey earned an hourly wage of more than $30.35, while half of all workers earned $18.75 or less per hour. Fully 25% of workers in Fresno County earned only the state’s minimum wage of $15 per hour, according to the EDD’s estimates.
Among about 21,400 people working as health care practitioners and related technical occupations – doctors, registered nurses, therapists, pharmacists and others – the average pay was more than $54 per hour, or almost $113,000 per year, slightly less than the management category.
Those plum salaries, however, don’t flow evenly through the broader health industry. Healthcare support occupations such as home health aides and personal care aides, physical therapy aides, veterinary assistants, orderlies, and other support workers typically earn less – far less, in some jobs – than the medical professions that require higher levels of training or licensing.
The average wage among healthcare support occupations was less than $17 per hour – about $2 more than the state’s minimum wage – or $35,000 a year. The median wage, which is the point at which half of workers in the category make more and half make less, was just $15.21 per hour.
The largest number of such health support workers, home health or personal care aides, represented more than 22,000 people, but had the lowest average salary at $15.33 per hour or less than $32,000 annually. That’s about the same as some of the other lowest-paid occupations in Fresno County, including farm laborers, retail cashiers, and fast-food cooks and counter workers.
This story was originally published July 16, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Want to know who makes bank in the Fresno region? See jobs in our interactive database."
