Employer costs for employee compensation, September 2009

Total employer compensation costs for civilian workers, which include private industry and state and local government workers, averaged $29.40 per hour worked in September 2009.

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Total employer compensation costs for private industry workers averaged $27.49 per hour worked in September 2009. State and local government employers spent an average of $39.83 per hour worked for total employee compensation in September 2009.

Health benefit employer costs were $4.43 per hour worked for state and local government and $2.01 in private industry.

Paid leave, including vacation, holiday, sick and personal leave, cost $3.05 per hour worked for state and local government and $1.86 in private industry.

Retirement and savings costs, which include both defined benefit and defined contribution plans, were $3.23 per hour worked for state and local government employers and 94 cents for private employers.

These data are from the National Compensation Survey's Employment Cost Trends program. To learn more about employer costs for employee wages, salaries and benefits, see "Employer Costs for Employee Compensation — September 2009" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL 09-1501.