An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it's official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you're on a federal government site.

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

ECEC Home

The Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC) measures the average employer cost per employee hour worked for total compensation, wages and salaries, and benefits, and costs as a percent of total compensation. These data are collected through the National Compensation Survey (NCS) and provide information about average compensation in the economy at a point in time.

Employer costs are available for different benefits, including paid leave—vacation, holiday, sick, and personal leave; supplemental pay—overtime and premium, shift differentials, and nonproduction bonuses; insurance—life, health, short-term and long-term disability; retirement and savings— defined benefit and defined contribution; and legally required benefits—Social Security, Medicare, federal and state unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation.

Notices

With the March 2027 release of December 2026 data, the Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC) will remove workers’ compensation costs from ECEC calculations. Read More »
The National Compensation Measures Handbook of Methods has been divided into three new Handbook of Methods that focus on the three separate NCS publications (ECI, ECEC, Benefits). Read More »

Charts

Employer costs per hour worked for employee compensation, March 2026
Compensation	Civilian workers	Private industry workers	State and local government workers
Total compensation	$49.32	$46.60	$66.41
Wages and salaries	$33.72	$32.60	$40.82
Total benefits	$15.60	$14.01	$25.59

Latest Numbers

EMPLOYER COSTS FOR EMPLOYEE COMPENSATION (ECEC)

Total compensation: per hour worked

Civilian workers $49.32 in 1st Qtr of 2026

Private industry workers $46.60 in 1st Qtr of 2026

State and local government workers $66.41 in 1st Qtr of 2026

News Releases

Private industry compensation costs average $46.60 per hour worked in March 2026

06/12/2026

Employer costs for private industry workers averaged $32.60 per hour worked for wages and salaries and $14.01 for benefits in March 2026. Compensation costs were $18.06 at the 10th wage percentile, $34.78 at the median, and $89.70 at the 90th percentile.
HTML | PDF | RSS | Charts

Next Release

The Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC) June 2026 is scheduled to be released on September 9, 2026 at 10:00 A.M. Eastern Time.

Publications

Beyond the Numbers

Employer-provided bonuses: what are they, what types of businesses offer them, and who receives them?

This Beyond the Numbers article, presents information on the types of private industry businesses that provide nonproduction bonuses and which employees have access to these bonuses. read more »

Monthly Labor Review

The National Compensation Survey and the Affordable Care Act: preserving quality health care data

With the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the National Compensation Survey has worked to evaluate the potential effects on the cost, coverage, and provisions for the employer-sponsored health care data it currently publishes; and explore possibilities for future collection and publication efforts. read more »

The Economics Daily

Compensation costs for private industry workers up 3.3 percent over the year ended June 2026

Compensation costs for private industry workers increased 3.3 percent from June 2025 to June 2026. The 12-month change in private industry compensation costs was 3.5 percent in June 2025 and 3.9 percent in June 2024. Since 2016, increases in compensation costs have ranged from 1.8 percent (in March 2016) to 5.5 percent (June 2022) over the year. read more »

Spotlight on Statistics

Keeping America Moving: Characteristics of the Transportation and Warehousing Industry

National Transportation Week, created in 1962 and celebrated from May 12–18 this year, recognizes those who build and operate our Nation’s transportation systems. Observance of the week sprung from National Defense Transportation Day which dates to 1957, a year after President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act leading to the creation of the interstate highway system. read more »