Employer Costs for Employee Compensation News Release — 2017-09-08

Employer costs for employee compensation averaged $35.28 per hour worked in June 2017, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Wages and salaries averaged $24.10 per hour worked and accounted for 68.3 percent of these costs, while benefits averaged $11.18 and accounted for the remaining 31.7 percent. The employer costs for retirement and savings averaged $1.92 per employee hour worked (5.4 percent of total compensation). (See table 1.) Total employer compensation costs for private industry workers averaged $33.26 per hour worked where wages and salaries averaged $23.15 (69.6 percent of total compensation) and benefit costs averaged $10.11 (30.4 percent). (See table 5.) Total employer compensation costs for state and local government workers averaged $48.06 per hour worked, where wages and salaries averaged $30.12 (62.7 percent of total compensation) and benefit costs averaged $17.94 (37.3 percent).