Employment changes in jobs and their effect on the Employment Cost Index

The Employment Cost Index (ECI) for wages and salaries is based on a comparison of the average wage rates for the same set of jobs across a 3-month interval. Employment in most of the jobs remains the same from one reference period to the next. However, employment does increase for some of the sampled jobs, while it decreases for others. Wage growth among jobs with an employment increase is typically lower and with an employment decrease is typically higher than wage growth among jobs in which employment remains the same. The high growth rate of wages among jobs with an employment decrease largely offsets the low growth rate of wages among jobs with an employment increase, so the overall wage growth in the ECI is usually similar to the wage growth among jobs in which employment remains the same.