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Bureau of Labor Statistics > Employment Cost Index > Home

Annual Seasonal Readjustment: Seasonal factors and revised seasonally adjusted estimates

Seasonal adjustment removes the effects of events that follow a more or less regular pattern each year. Over the course of a year, such events affect the rate of wage and benefit change. For example, wage and benefit adjustments in state and local governments, especially schools, are concentrated in the June-September period. Increases in the Social Security tax rate and earnings ceiling, when they occur, take effect in the December-March period. Wage and benefit adjustments in construction typically occur in the summer when there is the most activity in the industry. Adjusting for these seasonal patterns makes it easier to observe the cyclical and other nonseasonal movements in the series.

At the beginning of each calendar year seasonal adjustment factors are calculated for use during the coming year and revisions of historical seasonally adjusted data are made for the most recent 5 years. During this process all published series are reviewed for seasonality. In some instances, series no longer exhibit seasonality and are dropped from the seasonally adjusted News Release tables and are retained in the historical tables. In other instances, series are added when they begin exhibiting identifiable seasonality and are added to the seasonally adjusted data tables along with 5 years of historical data.

Table A. Employment Cost Index changes to seasonally adjusted series, 2011-present
Index Series ID	3-month Percent Change Series ID	Compensation component	Ownership	Characteristic	Year	Change
CIS2024120000000I	CIS2024120000000Q	Wages and salaries	Private industry	Retail trade industry	2011	Seasonal
CIS2020000300000I	CIS2020000300000Q	Wages and salaries	Private industry	Service occupations	2011	Seasonal
CIS1026230000000I	CIS1026230000000Q	Wages and salaries	Civilian	Nursing and residential care facilities industry	2012	Seasonal
CIS2014110000000I	CIS2014110000000Q	Total compensation	Private industry	Wholesale trade industry	2012	Seasonal
CIS2025220000000I	CIS2025220000000Q	Wages and salaries	Private industry	Credit intermediation and related activities industry	2013	Non-seasonal
CIS2025220000000I	CIS2025220000000Q	Wages and salaries	Private industry	Credit intermediation and related activities industry	2014	Seasonal
CIS2026230000000I	CIS2026230000000Q	Wages and salaries	Private industry	Nursing and residential care facilities industry	2015	Seasonal
CIS2020000300000I	CIS2020000300000Q	Wages and salaries	Private industry	Service occupations	2015	Non-seasonal
CIS2014110000000I	CIS2014110000000Q	Total compensation	Private industry	Wholesale trade industry	2016	Non-seasonal
CIS2020000300000I	CIS2020000300000Q	Wages and salaries	Private industry	Service occupations	2017	Seasonal
CIS2014110000000I	CIS2014110000000Q	Total compensation	Private industry	Wholesale trade industry	2018	Seasonal
CIS2025600000000I	CIS2025600000000Q	Wages and salaries	Private industry	Administrative and support and waste management and remediation services industry	2018	Non-seasonal
CIS2020000110000I	CIS2020000110000Q	Wages and salaries	Private industry	Management, business, and financial occupations	2019	Non-seasonal
CIS2026220000000I	CIS2026220000000Q	Wages and salaries	Private industry	Hospitals industry	2019	Non-seasonal
CIS2026220000000I	CIS2026220000000Q	Wages and salaries	Private industry	Hospitals industry	2020	Seasonal
CIS2020000110000I	CIS2020000110000Q	Wages and salaries	Private industry	Management, business, and financial occupations	2020	Seasonal
CIS2025300000000I	CIS2025300000000Q	Wages and salaries	Private industry	Real estate and leasing industry	2020	Seasonal
CIS1026230000000I	CIS1026230000000Q	Wages and salaries	Civilian	Nursing and residential care facilities industry	2020	Non-seasonal
CIS2026230000000I	CIS2026230000000Q	Wages and salaries	Private industry	Nursing and residential care facilities industry	2020	Non-seasonal
CIS2027200000000I	CIS2027200000000Q	Wages and salaries	Private industry	Accommodation and food services industry	2020	Non-seasonal
CIS2024110000000I	CIS2024110000000Q	Wages and salaries	Private industry	Wholesale trade industry	2021	Seasonal
CIS2026230000000I	CIS2026230000000Q	Wages and salaries	Private industry	Nursing and residential care facilities industry	2021	Seasonal
CIS1026230000000I	CIS1026230000000Q	Wages and salaries	Civilian	Nursing and residential care facilities industry	2021	Seasonal
CIS2027200000000I	CIS2027200000000Q	Wages and salaries	Private industry	Accommodation and food services industry	2021	Seasonal
CIS2020000210000I	CIS2020000210000Q	Wages and salaries	Private industry	Sales and related occupations	2021	Non-seasonal
CIS2025600000000I	CIS2025600000000Q	Wages and salaries	Private industry	Administrative and support and waste management and remediation services	2023	Seasonal
CIS2026230000000I	CIS2026230000000Q	Wages and salaries	Private industry	Nursing and residential care facilities	2024	Non-seasonal
CIS1026230000000I	CIS1026230000000Q	Wages and salaries	Civilian	Nursing and residential care facilities	2024	Non-seasonal
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Cost Index.

Employment Cost Index series are seasonally adjusted using either the direct or indirect seasonal adjustment method. Indexes at comparatively low levels of aggregation, such as the construction wage index, are adjusted by the direct method; that is, dividing the index by its seasonal factor. Seasonal factors are derived using the X-13 ARIMA seasonal adjustment program developed by the U.S. Census Bureau. Most higher level aggregate indexes, such as civilian or private industry workers wages or benefits, are seasonally adjusted by the indirect method, a weighted sum of seasonally adjusted component indexes, where the weights sum to 1.0. Industry and occupational series that are seasonally adjusted by the indirect method are based on industry and occupational components, respectively.

Employment Cost Index seasonal factors and historical listing:

Seasonal factors for directly adjusted series (XLSX)

Revised seasonally adjusted series: indexes and 3-month percent changes (XLSX)

For more information, see the ECI seasonal adjustment explanation in the calculation section and seasonal adjustment articles in the more info section of the Handbook of Methods: National Compensation Measures.

Last Modified Date: April 30, 2024