TECHNICAL NOTE
Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC), a product of the National Compensation Survey,
provides the average employer cost for wages and salaries as well as benefits per hour
worked. The ECEC covers the civilian economy, which includes data from both private industry and
state and local government. Excluded from private industry are the self-employed, private household
workers, and the agricultural sector. Federal government workers are excluded from the public sector.
Total benefit costs consist of five major categories and include 18 benefit costs:
* Paid leave - vacation, holiday, sick, and personal leave;
* Supplemental pay - overtime and premium, shift differentials, and nonproduction bonuses;
* Insurance - life, health, short-term and long-term disability;
* Retirement and savings - defined benefit and defined contribution; and
* Legally required benefits - Social Security (refers to Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability
Insurance (OASDI) program), Medicare, federal and state unemployment insurance, and Workers’
Compensation.
All workers are included in the benefit cost estimates including those that do not have plan access
or do not participate. Costs are also affected by other factors such as cost sharing between
employers and employees, plan features, and plan generosity. For the latest information on the
percentage of workers with access to and participating in employer-sponsored benefit plans,
including health care and retirement and savings plans, see www.bls.gov/ebs.
The National Compensation Measures provides additional details on the sample design, calculation
methodology, and resources explaining changes over time, see www.bls.gov/opub/hom/ncs/home.htm.
Sample size
Data for this reference period were collected from a probability sample of approximately 30,100
occupational observations selected from a sample of about 7,500 private industry establishments
and approximately 7,700 occupational observations selected from a sample of about 1,400 state and
local government establishments that provided data at the initial interview. Beginning December 2021,
an additional (fourth) private industry sample will be used in estimation to mitigate the impact
of decreasing response rates.
Measures of reliability
Relative standard errors (RSEs) provide users a tool to ascertain the quality of an estimate to
ensure that it is within an acceptable range for their intended purpose. RSEs are available at
www.bls.gov/ncs/ect/ecec-rse.htm and database query tool at www.bls.gov/ncs/ect/data.htm.
Comparisons
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.
Classification systems
The National Compensation Survey publishes estimates of compensation costs and trends as well as
benefit coverage by ownership, industry group, occupational group, and geographic areas, see
www.bls.gov/ncs/national-compensation-survey-classification-systems-mapping-files.htm.
Additional information
Additional and historical ECEC estimates are available in the ECEC database query tool at
www.bls.gov/ncs/ect/data.htm and in xlsx format at www.bls.gov/ncs/ect/tables.htm. The 2022 ECEC
release schedule is available at www.bls.gov/schedule/news_release/ecec.htm. Subscribe to receive
the BLS Economic News Release email at www.bls.gov/bls/list.htm.
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United States Department of Labor
