Asphalt Cost Calculator for Tennessee - Free 2026 Cost Estimates

Tennessee Asphalt Labor Costs — Verified from BLS OEWS (2025)

Every figure on this page is a published U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics value. Last verified 2026-06-20.

In Tennessee, paving, surfacing & tamping equipment operators — the core trade for asphalt work — earn a mean wage of $22.04/hr ($45,850 per year) in the 2025 BLS OEWS release. That is 22% below the national average (national mean $59,000 per year). Tennessee employs about 1,730 paving, surfacing & tamping equipment operators statewide. Related trades that price into a typical asphalt job include construction laborers ($45,970/yr), first-line supervisors of construction trades ($76,830/yr). Because labor is the largest variable cost on most asphalt projects, these published state wage levels are the biggest single reason asphalt costs differ between Tennessee and other states. Every figure here is a mean value published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and is refreshed automatically when BLS releases new OEWS data.

Across the trades that touch a typical asphalt job in Tennessee, BLS reports mean wages of paving, surfacing & tamping equipment operators at $45,850 per year ($22.04/hr); construction laborers at $45,970 per year ($22.10/hr); first-line supervisors of construction trades at $76,830 per year ($36.94/hr). The spread between first-line supervisors of construction trades ($76,830) and paving, surfacing & tamping equipment operators ($45,850) reflects differences in skill, certification, and supervisory responsibility on Tennessee job sites, and it is why a detailed, line-item estimate beats a single blended rate when you are budgeting asphalt work.

Half of Tennessee paving, surfacing & tamping equipment operators earn less than the median of $42,510 per year — below the $45,850 mean, which a smaller number of higher earners pulls upward. For budgeting, the median is often the more realistic figure for routine asphalt crews. BLS counts roughly 1,730 paving, surfacing & tamping equipment operators, 26,250 construction laborers, 17,770 first-line supervisors of construction trades employed across Tennessee, a measure of how deep the local asphalt-trade labor pool is and how much competition for crews you can expect when scheduling work.

When you budget a asphalt job in Tennessee, treat these BLS wage levels as the labor-rate floor: a crew's billed rate adds overhead, insurance, equipment, and margin on top of the $22.04/hr mean wage shown above. Because Tennessee's paving, surfacing & tamping equipment operators wages sit 22% below the national average, a asphalt quote that comes in far below these published rates is worth a second look — labor that cheap usually signals a different scope, materials, or crew experience. Use the calculator on this page to combine these Tennessee labor rates with your project's material quantities for a complete estimate.

Wages are statewide means published by BLS and reflect labor cost only — not the total installed cost of a project. Use the calculator below for a full materials-and-labor estimate, and always obtain written bids from licensed Tennessee contractors.