Compensation costs per hour worked in private industry, September 2008

In September 2008, private industry employer compensation costs averaged $27.07 per hour worked. Private industry employer wages and salaries averaged $19.14 per hour (70.7 percent), while total benefits averaged $7.93 (29.3 percent).

[Chart data—TXT]

Private industry employer costs for legally required benefits averaged $2.26 (8.3 percent) per hour worked, insurance benefits averaged $2.07 (7.7 percent), paid leave averaged $1.81 per hour worked (6.7 percent), retirement and savings averaged 97 cents (3.6 percent), and supplemental pay averaged 82 cents (3.0 percent).

Legally required benefits include employer costs for Social Security and Medicare, federal and state unemployment insurance, and worker's compensation.

These data are from the Employment Cost Trends program. To learn more, see "Employer Costs for Employee Compensation — September 2008," (PDF) (HTML) news release USDL 08-1802.