Wages, Earnings, and Benefits

Dates

June 20 – 24, 2011

Application deadline

May 20, 2011

Tuition

$1,688

Participants

This seminar is designed primarily for economists, statisticians, researchers, analysts, and managers working with compensation data. Participants should have an elementary knowledge of statistics and some experience in analyzing labor or social data.

Objectives

To strengthen participants' capabilities to:

  • Design, conduct, and analyze surveys of wages, salaries, and benefits by occupation
  • Conduct surveys to measure employers' total expenditures for employee compensation, including straight-time pay for hours worked and benefits
  • Develop measures of the rate of change in employee compensation, known as employment or labor cost indexes, which are useful in analyzing wage trends and relating them to other economic variables
  • Develop techniques to identify the nature and characteristics of compensation data needed for producing quality statistics and to select methods of computation to meet different requirements
  • Implement an integrated system of compensation statistics
  • Evaluate minimum wage issues

Program content

Wages, salaries, and benefits account for a substantial part of a country's national income. The magnitude of these figures underscores the importance of an adequate statistical program measuring employee compensation.

Reliable statistics on wages, salaries, and benefits are useful to labor and management in collective bargaining and other labor negotiations. Governments also use such statistics when formulating public and monetary policy. Knowledge of levels and trends in pay rates by occupation, industry, and locality is important in the analysis of current economic developments and in studies relating to wage dispersion and differentials.

Participants are encouraged to bring examples of wage surveys, including methodology and questionnaires, from their own countries to use in discussions and workshops. These surveys may measure rates of pay, compensation, or income. Time will be reserved for participants to have appointments with staff of BLS and other organizations to discuss special problems and explore areas of special interest.

A summary of the program follows:

Overview of BLS wage programs

  • Historical perspective
  • Compensation theory

Sampling

  • Sample frame development
  • Sample design selection

National Compensation Survey (NCS)—survey concepts and design

  • National and local occupational wages and salaries
  • Employment Cost Index (ECI)
  • Employer Cost for Employee Compensation (ECEC)
  • Employee Benefits Survey (EBS)

Integrated workshop

  • Generic leveling
  • Data coding

Data review

  • Quality measures
  • Re-interview program

Data processing

  • Data estimation
  • Collection tools

Publications

  • Survey publications
  • Data analysis—uses and limitations
  • Data dissemination

Minimum wages

 

Last modified: July 1, 2011