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Impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on Employer Costs for Employee Compensation data for September 2020
This page provides further information on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic for the September 2020 Employer Costs for Employee Compensation news release.
Collection mode
Employer Costs for Employee Compensation data are collected by BLS field economists contacting establishment respondents. Respondents may provide information through personal visits, phone, email, electronic file transmission, fax, and mail. Field economists have discontinued personal visits and are relying on the other collection methods at this time.
Response rates
Nonresponse may increase because of difficulty reaching survey respondents or selected jobs having no workers for the reference period. See the historical response rates. Response rates were comparable in September 2020 to the June 2020 release.
| Compensation component | Dec 2019 | Mar 2020 | Jun 2020 | Sep 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Wages and salaries |
86.0% | 79.5% | 80.0% | 81.2% |
|
Benefits |
95.3% | 95.9% | 95.8% | 95.3% |
Measures of reliability
To help users evaluate the reliability of Employer Costs for Employee Compensation estimates, relative standard errors are available for news release tables and supplemental private industry tables (TXT) (PDF).
Changes to methods
There were no changes to estimation methods for the September 2020 release of the Employer Costs for Employee Compensation. Benchmarking by size class was performed using March 2020 Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages data. Benchmarking by industry was conducted using September 2020 (third closing) data from the Current Employment Statistics.
Last Modified Date: December 17, 2020
