What is Mean wage?

Mean wage is the average wage for a worker in a specified position or occupation, which may be skewed up or down if there are a few extreme examples in the sample.

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Mean wage definition

Mean is the same as average, and it is calculated in the same way. It is the result of dividing the sum of two or more values by the number of values. In other words, (a+b+c)/3 = the mean or average.

If we, for example, have five employees in the accounting department and their annual salaries are:

$38,000

$68,000

$55,000

$44,000

$59,000

The sum of these five salaries is $264,000. If we then divide the sum by the number of data points (five), we get an average or mean salary of $52,800.

Importance of mean wage

Mean wages are used a lot in HR. This value is very important for both job seekers and job promoters. Job seekers are often interesting about mean wages in the industry or location they are looking a for a job at. 

On the other side, employer and HR professionals need to be familiar with mean wages by position, location and industry when writing job descriptions in order to attract talent to apply to their open positions, stay fair and competitive. 

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