Employer Costs for Employee Compensation News Release — 2020-03-19

Private industry employers spent an average of $34.72 per hour worked for total employee compensation in December 2019, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Wages and salaries averaged $24.36 per hour worked and accounted for 70.1 percent of these costs, while benefit costs averaged $10.37 and accounted for the remaining 29.9 percent. (See table 1.) Within total benefits, supplemental pay costs averaged $1.19 per hour worked or 3.4 percent of total compensation. Supplemental pay includes employer costs for employee shift differentials (extra payments for working a non-traditional work schedule) that averaged $0.08 (0.2 percent), overtime and premium pay (pay for work in addition to the regular work schedule) that averaged $0.31 (0.9 percent), and nonproduction bonuses (such as holiday bonuses or end-of-year bonuses which are given at the discretion of the employer and are not tied to a production formula) at $0.79 (2.3 percent).