Technical Note


                                               TECHNICAL NOTE


Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC) measures the average cost to employers for wages 
and salaries and benefits per employee hour worked.

ECEC includes the civilian economy, which includes data from both private industry and state and local 
government. Excluded from private industry are the self-employed and farm and private household 
workers. Federal government workers are excluded from the public sector.  The private industry series 
and the state and local government series provide data for the two sectors separately.

The cost levels for this quarter were collected from a probability sample of approximately 48,200 
occupations selected from a sample of about 9,400 establishments in private industry and approximately 
9,300 occupations from a sample of about 1,400 establishments in state and local government. Data are 
collected for the pay period including the 12th day of the survey months of March, June, September, and 
December.  

Comparing private and public sector data

Compensation cost levels in state and local government should not be directly compared with levels in 
private industry. Differences between these sectors stem from factors such as variation in work activities 
and occupational structures. Manufacturing and sales, for example, make up a large part of private 
industry work activities but are rare in state and local government. Professional and administrative 
support occupations (including teachers) account for two-thirds of the state and local government 
workforce, compared with one-half of private industry.

ECEC quarterly publication focus

ECEC news releases are published quarterly, providing estimates on civilian, private industry, and state 
and local government cost per hour worked as well as additional detail on a specific compensation cost 
topic of interest. This quarter focuses on paid leave and legally required benefits costs in private 
industry. Topics of news releases for the upcoming reference periods are as follows:
           * March 2012—Health benefit costs in private industry
           * June 2012—Retirement and savings benefit costs in private industry
           * September 2012—Compensation costs in state and local government

ECEC detailed information and measures

For detailed information on the Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, see Chapter 8, “National 
Compensation Measures,” of the BLS Handbook of Methods at: 
http://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/pdf/homch8.pdf.

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Last Modified Date: March 14, 2012