2006 International Comparisons of Hourly Compensation Costs in Manufacturing — 2008-01-25

Average hourly compensation costs in U.S. dollars for production workers in manufacturing among 33 foreign economies were 82 percent of the U.S. level in 2006, increasing from 79 percent in 2005, according to data issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor. Compensation costs relative to the United States rose or remained unchanged in 30 of the economies covered in 2006. (See table 1.) For the first time, this news release contains data for all employees in addition to the series for production workers. (See discussion on page 6, table B, and table 7.) Both production worker and all employee data are introduced for the Philippines. The all employee series covers most of the countries included in the production worker series, but also introduces Argentina and Slovakia which are not included in the latter series. A note on China's labor costs appears on page 4 of this release.