Employer Costs for Employee Compensation News Release — 2008-03-12

Employer costs for employee compensation for civilian workers averaged $28.11 per hour worked in December 2007, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Wages and salaries, which averaged $19.62, accounted for 69.8 percent of these costs, while benefits, which averaged $8.49, accounted for the remaining 30.2 percent. (See table 1.) Employers averaged $2.23 or 7.9 percent of total compensation for legally required benefits for every hour worked in December 2007. Legally required benefits -- which include Social Security, Medicare, federal and state unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation -- is only one of several benefit categories included in Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, along with wages and salaries. Employer Costs for Employee Compensation is a product of the National Compensation Survey, which measures employer costs for wages, salaries, and employee benefits for nonfarm private and state and local government workers.