November 05, 2009 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Small increases in compensation costs in September 2009

Compensation costs and its components—wages and salaries and benefits—decelerated for private industry workers for the 12-month period ending September 2009, registering the smallest increases since each series began. The differences were not statistically different from last quarter. Wages and salaries make up about 70 percent of compensation and benefits make up the remaining 30 percent.

12-month percent changes in Employment Cost Index, private industry, December 2008–March 2009
[Chart data]

Compensation costs increased 1.2 percent, the smallest percent change published since the series began in 1980.

The wage and salary series, which began in 1975, increased 1.4 percent for the current 12-month period.

The cost of benefits, which have been measured since 1980, increased 1.1 percent for the 12-month period ending September 2009.

These data are from the Employment Cost Trends program. To learn more, see "Employment Cost Index — September 2009 " (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL 09-1303.

 

 

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