Employer Costs For Employee Compensation-March 2004 — 2004-06-24

Employer costs for employee compensation averaged $24.95 per hour worked in March 2004, the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Wages and salaries, which averaged $17.71, accounted for 71.0 percent of these costs, while benefits, which averaged $7.23, accounted for the remaining 29.0 percent. (See table 1.) Benefits, as a percentage of total compensation, have risen in the past three years from 27.4 percent of total compensation in March 2001. Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, based on the Bureau's National Compensation Survey, measures employer costs for wages, salaries, and employee benefits for nonfarm private and State and local government workers. Beginning with this release, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation data are based on new classifications of industry and occupation: the 2002 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), and the 2000 Standard Occupational Classification (SOC). These systems replace the 1987 Standard Industrial Classification System (SIC) and the Occupational Classification System (OCS).