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Compensation costs in private industry averaged $35.34 per hour worked in March 2020

June 23, 2020

Employer costs for employee compensation for private industry workers averaged $35.34 per hour worked in March 2020. Wages and salaries averaged $24.82 per hour worked and accounted for 70.2 percent of these costs. Benefit costs averaged $10.53 and accounted for the remaining 29.8 percent. In the utilities industry, total compensation costs averaged $66.01 per hour worked in March; benefits accounted for 38.3 percent of compensation costs in the industry.

Employer costs per hour worked for employee compensation of private industry workers, by industry, March 2020
Industry Wages and salaries Total benefits Total compensation

All workers

$24.82 $10.53 $35.34

Utilities

40.71 25.30 66.01

Information

38.07 18.31 56.38

Financial activities

33.43 16.41 49.85

Educational services

33.38 13.26 46.64

Professional and business services

31.39 12.32 43.71

Transportation and warehousing

26.25 14.21 40.45

Construction

27.67 12.49 40.17

Manufacturing

26.27 13.28 39.55

Wholesale trade

27.06 11.24 38.30

Health care and social assistance

24.79 10.70 35.49

Other services

21.26 7.17 28.44

Retail trade

15.72 5.05 20.77

Leisure and hospitality

12.53 3.33 15.87

Total employer compensation costs in leisure and hospitality averaged $15.86 per hour worked in March. Benefits accounted for 21.0 percent of this total.

These data are from the Employment Cost Trends program. To learn more, see "Employer Costs for Employee Compensation — March 2020." We also have more charts on employer costs for employee compensation.

SUGGESTED CITATION

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, Compensation costs in private industry averaged $35.34 per hour worked in March 2020 at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2020/compensation-costs-in-private-industry-averaged-35-point-34-per-hour-worked-in-march-2020.htm (visited May 13, 2024).

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