Breaking it down: a decomposition of the 2024 gain in private-sector average hourly earnings by major industry sector

Higher annual gains in private-sector average hourly earnings occurred in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect across the economy, hitting $1.37 in 2024 as higher gains have persisted. This article seeks to isolate the effect that each major industry had on the annual change in total private earnings in 2024. Each month, the Current Employment Statistics (CES) program of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) produces detailed estimates of industry employment, hours, and earnings of workers on private payrolls. CES earnings data are available for the private sector on both an hourly and a weekly basis. Annual gains in average hourly earnings of all employees in the private sector averaged $1.11 from 2015 through 2024, though a clear shift to higher gains occurred in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect across the economy.1 (See chart 1.) From 2015 to 2019, the annual gain in hourly earnings averaged