January 05, 2007 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Labor costs in China’s manufacturing sector

In 2004, average hourly compensation in the manufacturing sector in China was a small fraction of that found in many of China’s largest trade partners, according to a recent study.

Average hourly compensation costs of manufacturing workers, selected economies, 2004
[Chart data—TXT]

Erin Lett and Judith Banister estimate that average hourly manufacturing compensation for China in 2004 was about 3 percent of the average hourly compensation costs of $22.87 for production workers in the United States for the same year.

Employees in China’s urban areas were compensated at a higher rate ($1.19 per hour) than those employed in town and village enterprises ($0.45 per hour).

Data in the chart (except for China) are from the BLS Foreign Labor Statistics program and refer to manufacturing production workers. Compensation data for China are for all manufacturing employees and are not official BLS data; they are from the article, "Labor costs of manufacturing employees in China: an update to 2003–04," by Erin Lett and Judith Banister, Monthly Labor Review, November 2006.

Of interest

Spotlight on Statistics: The Recession of 2007–2009

The most recent recession in the United States began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, though many of the statistics that describe the U.S. economy have yet to return to their pre-recession values. In this Spotlight, we present BLS data that compare the recent recession to previous recessions. Read more »