Workers in the U.S. Virgin Islands earned an average hourly wage of $24.82 in May 2024, according to newly released data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). That figure falls significantly below the national average of $32.66 per hour, BLS said on Friday, highlighting ongoing income disparities between the territory and the mainland.
Among the higher-paying major occupational groups in the territory were legal ($46.21/hour), management ($44.79/hour), and computer and mathematical occupations ($41.08/hour).
While those figures represent the upper end of the wage scale, the BLS focused its latest report on the territory’s office and administrative support occupations, which remain a vital part of the local labor market.
Office and administrative support jobs represented 13.7% of all employment in the U.S. Virgin Islands, surpassing the national share of 11.8%. In total, the territory had approximately 4,660 such positions as of May 2024.
These jobs span a range of roles, from front-line clerical work to supervisory and postal services. According to BLS, some office-related roles in the Virgin Islands pay above the territory’s average hourly wage, especially those involving higher responsibility or specialized duties.
This chart shows the average hourly wages for selected higher-paying office and administrative support occupations in the U.S. Virgin Islands as of May 2024. It compares those wages to the overall average for all occupations. Postal service clerks top the list within this category, earning well above the average, while other roles such as mail carriers, executive assistants, and support supervisors also rank among the higher-paid office jobs. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
According to the BLS chart titled “Hourly mean wages for selected higher paying office and administrative support occupations in the U.S. Virgin Islands, May 2024”, postal service clerks top the list within the category, earning hourly wages well above the average for all occupations.
Other well-compensated positions include:
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Postal service mail carriers
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Executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants
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First-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers
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Office and administrative support workers (all other)
Each of these roles outpaces the general office support wage average, and several exceed the overall mean hourly wage for the territory.
Interestingly, hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks were noted as being more than three times as prevalent in the U.S. Virgin Islands than in the United States overall, based on their location quotient. This underscores the tourism sector’s influence on the local job market and its demand for service-based administrative roles.
Data from the BLS also show that the average weekly wage across all industries in the Virgin Islands was $983 during the third quarter of 2024, compared to $1,394 nationally. Among the islands:
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St. Thomas posted the highest average weekly wage at $1,003
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St. Croix followed at $972
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St. John came in lower at $873
The U.S. Virgin Islands Economic Summary, updated in March 2025, revealed mixed employment trends. Total nonfarm employment stood at 35,300 in January 2025, down 0.6% from the previous year. The leisure and hospitality sector experienced a notable decline of 4.2%, while mining, logging, and construction grew by 4.8% over the same period.
The BLS noted that office and administrative support roles are a cornerstone of the territory’s workforce. Although wages in these occupations vary by title and responsibility, they remain essential to both public and private sector operations.
For more details and to view the full data, visit www.bls.gov/regions.
