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Employer costs for employee compensation, March 2015

June 12, 2015

Private industry employers spent an average of $31.65 per hour worked for employee compensation in March 2015. Wages and salaries averaged $21.94 per hour worked and accounted for 69.3 percent of these costs. Benefits averaged $9.71 and accounted for the remaining 30.7 percent.

Employer costs for employee compensation, March 2005–March 2015
Quarter Total compensation Wages and salaries Benefits

Mar 2005

24.17 17.15 7.02

Mar 2006

25.09 17.73 7.36

Mar 2007

25.91 18.34 7.58

Mar 2008

26.76 18.91 7.86

Mar 2009

27.46 19.45 8.02

Mar 2010

27.73 19.58 8.15

Mar 2011

28.10 19.85 8.25

Mar 2012

28.78 20.25 8.53

Mar 2013

29.13 20.47 8.66

Mar 2014

29.99 20.96 9.03

Mar 2015

31.65 21.94 9.71

The average cost to private industry employers for health insurance benefits was $2.43 per hour worked in March 2015 (7.7 percent of total compensation). Among occupational groups, employer costs for health insurance benefits ranged from 89 cents per hour worked (6.1 percent) for service workers to $3.71 per hour worked (6.6 percent) for management, professional, and related occupations.

These data are from the Employment Cost Trends program. For more information, see “Employer Costs for Employee Compensation — March 2015” (HTML) (PDF).

SUGGESTED CITATION

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, Employer costs for employee compensation, March 2015 at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2015/employer-costs-for-employee-compensation-march-2015.htm (visited March 28, 2024).

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