News release: “Retail salespersons and cashiers were the two largest occupations in the private sector in May 2009, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Postal service mail carriers; correctional officers and jailers; and elementary school teachers, except special education, had the highest employment among all occupations in federal, state, and local government, respectively. These data are from the Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) program, which provides employment and wage estimates for wage and salary workers in 22 major occupational groups and 801 detailed occupations. In May 2010, OES released 2009 cross-ownership data by occupation for the nation, states, metropolitan areas, metropolitan divisions, and nonmetropolitan areas, and by occupation and industry for the nation. While OES has previously released occupational employment and wage estimates at the federal, state, and local government levels, these data did not include state and local government schools and hospitals. To meet user demand, in 2006 BLS began work necessary to produce OES data for private ownership and at a more detailed level for state and local government. In particular, new state and local government estimates consist of all state and local government establishments, including schools and hospitals, which before were only included with the estimates of privately owned schools and hospitals. Data by ownership are available from the OES homepage at www.bls.gov/oes.”