Employer Costs for Employee Compensation News Release — 2010-12-08

State and local government employers spent an average of $26.25 per hour worked for employee wages and salaries in September 2010, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Wages and salaries accounted for 65.5 percent of compensation costs while benefits averaged $13.85 per hour worked and accounted for the remaining 34.5 percent. (See chart 1.) Wages and salaries for management, professional, and related occupations, which represent approximately half of all state and local government employment, averaged $33.17 per hour worked. Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC), a product of the National Compensation Survey, measures employer costs for wages, salaries, and employee benefits for nonfarm private and state and local government workers. Health benefit employer costs in September 2010 were $4.65 per hour worked for state and local government and $2.10 in private industry.