How to use Florida wage data when you’re hiring

What should you offer a new bookkeeper? You might start by looking up wages in your county. Those figures can tell you something about the local economy, but you’ll need a closer comparison before setting pay for a particular job.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Florida county wage release, published September 2, 2026, puts average weekly wages in Miami-Dade at $1,797, Orange at $1,432, and Pasco at $1,141 for the first quarter of 2026.

These three counties illustrate how much an all-industry average can vary. They aren’t a ranking or a list of recommended places to hire.

Miami-Dade

$1,797

Orange

$1,432

Pasco

$1,141

BLS county employment and wages, Table 2. Preliminary figures, with bars starting at zero. The linked release may later show a newer quarter.

What’s inside the average?

The figures combine covered jobs across industries and include both full-time and part-time work. Wages can include bonuses and tips. The county is where the workplace is located, which may differ from where employees live. BLS explains these details in its weekly wage calculation notes.

So dividing Orange County’s $1,432 by 40 hours wouldn’t establish an hourly rate for your next hire. The figure combines people doing different jobs and working different schedules. It also leaves out groups such as business proprietors and the unincorporated self-employed, as the program overview explains.

The difference between Miami-Dade and Orange is $365 a week: $1,797 minus $1,432. That doesn’t tell you an equivalent bookkeeper should earn $365 more in one county. It tells you to look more closely at the work and the local hiring market.

Look up the job you’re actually filling

Suppose your new hire will post transactions, check receipts, and reconcile routine records. Compare those duties with BLS’s description of bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks. That occupation has the code 43-3031. A role mainly handling payroll or managing broader financial work may need a different comparison.

For a business hiring in the Orlando area, here’s one way to look it up:

1. Open the May 2025 metro-area wage tables. Under Florida, choose Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford.
2. Find Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks (43-3031) in the Orlando-area table. Your browser’s Find command can help with the long list.
3. Read the hourly median wage column. For this occupation and area, the May 2025 estimate is $23.30 an hour. Save the occupation, area, and date beside it.

The median is the midpoint: about half the workers earn less and half earn more. The same row’s hourly mean, or arithmetic average, is $24.73. Check the column heading before copying a number.

Neither figure is automatically a starting wage or the right offer for your candidate. They describe workers across employers in that metro area, which covers more than Orange County. Compare the experience and duties you need, the hours, benefits, and current recruiting responses with the estimate. For another part of Florida, choose that area in the tables rather than reusing Orlando’s number.

Keep the area and date beside each figure. A metro-area occupation estimate and a county average measure different things; putting them side by side doesn’t make them equivalent.

Bring the numbers back to your business

Use a short hiring note to keep the comparison grounded:

• The work: duties, hours, required experience, and responsibilities.
• The market: where candidates could reasonably commute from, or whether the role is remote.
• The pay: base wages, benefits, and other employer costs shown separately.
• The response: recent applicants’ expectations and what happened during recruiting.

An applicant’s request is useful information, too. Keep the date and the circumstances, and remember that a handful of conversations is a small sample.

If you need help turning that note into a recruiting plan, find your local CareerSource team and ask about candidate screening, hiring events, and information about the local workforce.

This article’s county figures are a preliminary first-quarter 2026 snapshot and may be revised. You can download the three values used in the chart. Before setting a current offer, check for newer data and compare it with the job and candidates in front of you.