Employer Costs for Employee Compensation News Release — 2017-03-17

Employer costs for employee compensation averaged $34.90 per hour worked in December 2016, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Wages and salaries averaged $23.87 per hour worked and accounted for 68.4 percent of these costs, while benefits averaged $11.03 and accounted for the remaining 31.6 percent. Total employer compensation costs for private industry workers averaged $32.76 per hour worked in December 2016. Total employer compensation costs for state and local government workers averaged $47.85 per hour worked in December 2016. 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. Supplemental pay costs for private industry workers in December 2016 averaged $1.15 per hour worked or 3.5 percent of total compensation. Supplemental pay includes employer costs for employee overtime and premium pay, shift differentials, and nonproduction bonuses.