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This page provides further information on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic for the September 2021 Employment Cost Index news release.
The ECI 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.
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 2021 to the June 2021 release.
Compensation component | Dec 2019 | Mar 2020 | Jun 2020 | Sep 2020 | Dec 2020 | Mar 2021 | Jun 2021 | Sep 2021 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Wages and salaries |
86.0% | 79.5% | 80.0% | 81.2% | 81.3% | 82.4% | 81.8% | 81.9% |
Benefits |
95.3% | 95.9% | 95.8% | 95.3% | 95.6% | 96.1% | 95.0% | 94.4% |
BLS publishes measures of reliability along with not seasonally adjusted 3-month and 12-month percent changes. See Technical Information about Standard Errors for Employment Cost Index Estimates and the database query tools. The percentage of standard errors (3-month percent change) less than or equal to 0.3 are shown below.
Compensation component | Dec 2019 | Mar 2020 | Jun 2020 | Sep 2020 | Dec 2020 | Mar 2021 | Jun 2021 | Sep 2021 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total compensation |
99.2% | 89.4% | 84.8% | 96.2% | 96.2% | 89.4% | 88.6% | 87.1% |
Wages and salaries |
97.7% | 87.1% | 79.5% | 91.7% | 93.9% | 84.1% | 84.1% | 83.3% |
Benefits |
100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 92.9% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
Last Modified Date: October 29, 2021