Occupation / job
First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers pays $48,520, effectively level with the $50,020 all-occupation midpoint — $1,500 apart, which is inside the noise of a single year’s survey. Treat this as an average-paying occupation and decide it on everything else.
At 1,121,800 workers, First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers is one of the largest occupations in the country. Jobs at this scale are the labour market’s floor — always hiring, rarely bidding, and first to absorb people leaving somewhere else.
Supervising sales staff suits people who can carry a target that other people’s performance determines, and coach rather than simply sell it themselves.
No verified preparation time is on file for First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers. The wage survey behind every figure on this page asks employers what they pay, not what they required, so the honest answer here is that we do not know.
Who should not do this
From $38,590 to $62,130 is $1,961 a month, or 1.6x bottom quarter to top. An ordinary spread like this is mostly years and geography; assume you enter near the bottom of it and that closing the gap takes a career rather than a move.
A quarter of First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers earn under $38,590, which is $11,430 short of the $50,020 national midpoint. Assume you start there and check whether the arithmetic still works.
Avoid it if carrying a number you cannot personally close would keep you up at night.
There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 1,121,800 people employed as First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers; it did not count the people who trained for it and are doing something else, and a rate built without that denominator would be a number we made up.
What the spread tells you
1.6x between $38,590 and $62,130 is the ordinary shape of an occupation where experience and region both matter and neither dominates. $48,520 is a fair expectation by mid-career, not on day one.
Put in money rather than ratios: $38,590 at the 25th percentile, $48,520 at the midpoint, $62,130 at the 75th. $23,540 separates the quarter of First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Getting to $62,130, the 75th percentile, is worth $13,610 a year more than the $48,520 midpoint and $23,540 more than the $38,590 a quarter of First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers settle for.
$13,610 separates $48,520 from the $62,130 top quarter, while only $9,930 separates it from $38,590. The range leans upward, which means the middle of First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers has more room above it than a symmetric reading of the median would suggest.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers is $23.32 an hour. The quarters sit at $18.55 and $29.87, and the all-occupation midpoint at $24.04.
What these figures are, and what they are not
This is payroll data: it comes from employers, about people they employ. Anyone doing the work of First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $48,520 describes them.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers, the hourly figure is $48,520 over a 2,080-hour year — a unit conversion, not an adjustment.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else