Nationwide, private industry employers spent an average of $29.63 per hour worked for total employee compensation in December 2013. Wages and salaries averaged $20.76 per hour worked (and accounted for 70.1 percent of total employee compensation costs), while total benefits costs averaged $8.87 (accounting for the remaining 29.9 percent).
Total benefits costs consist of paid leave benefits (which averaged $2.05 per hour worked), supplemental pay (which averaged 85 cents per hour worked), insurance benefits ($2.45), retirement and savings ($1.10), and legally required benefits ($2.43).
By region, total employee compensation costs per hour worked in December 2013 ranged from $26.93 in the South to $33.87 in the Northeast. Wages and salaries ranged from the South's $19.20 to the Northeast's $23.25. Total benefits costs were $7.73 and $10.61, respectively, in these two regions.
These data are from the Employment Cost Trends program. To learn more, see "Employer Costs for Employee Compensation — December 2013" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL-14-0390.
United States Department of Labor
