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Bureau of Labor Statistics > Employment Cost Index > About > Notices

Introducing 2021 fixed employment weights and 2018 SOC codes for the Employment Cost Index

With the January 2023 release of December 2022 data, the ECI will introduce new 2021 fixed employment weights and publish data based on the 2018 Standard Occupational Classification System.

New 2021 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) weights

With the January 2023 release of December 2022 data, the ECI will introduce new 2021 fixed employment weights to replace the 2012 OEWS weights used between December 2013 and September 2022. The ECI weights are updated periodically to reflect the current industry and occupational employment distributions.

The primary source of the new weights for the ECI is the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) employment counts, benchmarked to the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) employment totals by industry. Table A compares percent distribution by private industry and occupation of the 2012 and 2021 weights.

Table A. Percent distribution of employment within the scope of the Employment Cost Index, private industry
Occupational and industry group	2012	2021
All workers	100	100
Occupational group
Management, business, and financial	9.8	13.0
Professional and related	16.4	17.5
Service	20.9	19.9
Sales and related	12.7	11.0
Office and administrative support	16.6	12.9
Construction, extraction, farm, fishing, and forestry	4.3	4.6
Installation, maintenance, and repair	4.2	4.2
Production	7.7	7.0
Transportation and material moving	7.4	10.0
Industry group
Goods-producing industries	16.8	16.9
Mining	0.7	0.4
Construction	5.2	6.1
Manufacturing	10.9	10.4
Service-providing industries	83.2	83.2
Utilities	0.5	0.5
Transportation and warehousing	4.0	5.0
Wholesale trade	5.2	4.8
Retail trade	13.8	12.7
Information	2.5	2.3
Financial Activities	6.9	7.0
Professional and business services	16.4	17.6
Educational services	2.5	2.4
Health services	15.4	16.8
Leisure and hospitality	12.5	10.9
Other services	3.5	3.2
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS)

New 2018 Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) codes

With the January 2023 release of December 2022 data, the ECI will introduce the new 2018 Standard Occupational Classification system to replace the 2010 system used from 2013 through 2022. With the 2021 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) data release in March 2022, the OEWS fully transitioned to SOC 2018. This change allows the NCS program to begin incorporating SOC 2018 in its products.

Due to changes in occupation coding, some ECI series were found to be discontinuous from SOC 2010 to SOC 2018. ECI series were evaluated in two stages to determine if they were continuous. First, series were deemed comparable if at least 90 percent of the total employment found in the SOC 2010 coding was also found in SOC 2018. Any series that failed this test were then tested to determine if:

the level of compensation based on the current weight is within five percent of the level of compensation based on the old weight
the percent change since the last reweight of the index based on the current definition does not differ from the percent change of the index based on the prior definition by more than 0.2 percentage points per year on average since the last reweight
the 12-month percent change in the index based on the current definition must be within the 90-percent confidence interval of the 12-month change in the index under the prior definition for every quarter since the last reweight. The first comparable reference period begins one year after the base period for the last reweight

If a series failed the 90 percent overlap test, it must then pass all three of these criteria to still be considered continuous.

Based on these tests, the series included in Table B were determined to be discontinuous. All historical and future data released under these series IDs will represent SOC 2018 classification.

Table B. Discontinuous series IDs containing SOC 2018 data
Series	Current Dollar(1)	Constant Dollar(1)	Seasonally Adjusted
Civilian Workers
Total compensation for transportation and material moving workers	CIU1010000520000A CIU1010000520000I CIU1010000520000Q	CIU1010000520000T CIU1010000520000X CIU1010000520000Z
Wages and salaries for transportation and material moving workers	CIU1020000520000A CIU1020000520000I CIU1020000520000Q	CIU1020000520000T CIU1020000520000X CIU1020000520000Z
Private Industry Workers
Total compensation for office and administrative support workers	CIU2010000220000A CIU2010000220000I CIU2010000220000Q	CIU2010000220000T CIU2010000220000X CIU2010000220000Z	CIS2010000220000I CIS2010000220000Q
Wages and salaries for office and administrative support workers	CIU2020000220000A CIU2020000220000I CIU2020000220000Q	CIU2020000220000T CIU2020000220000X CIU2020000220000Z	CIS2020000220000I CIS2020000220000Q
Total compensation for transportation and material moving workers	CIU2010000520000A CIU2010000520000I CIU2010000520000Q	CIU2010000520000T CIU2010000520000X CIU2010000520000Z	CIS2010000520000I CIS2010000520000Q
Wages and salaries for transportation and material moving workers	CIU2020000520000A CIU2020000520000I CIU2020000520000Q	CIU2020000520000T CIU2020000520000X CIU2020000520000Z	CIS2020000520000I CIS2020000520000Q
Footnotes: (1) Not seasonally adjusted

The series IDs contained in Table C will be used to archive estimates under the 2010 SOC system. These series will include estimates through September 2022 and will not be updated beyond then.

Table C. Discontinuous series IDs containing SOC 2010 data
Series	Current Dollar(1)	Constant Dollar(1)	Seasonally Adjusted
Civilian Workers
Total compensation for transportation and material moving workers	CIU101000052D000A CIU101000052D000I CIU101000052D000Q	CIU101000052D000T CIU101000052D000X CIU101000052D000Z
Wages and salaries for transportation and material moving workers	CIU102000052D000A CIU102000052D000I CIU102000052D000Q	CIU102000052D000T CIU102000052D000X CIU102000052D000Z
Private Industry Workers
Total compensation for office and administrative support workers	CIU201000022D000A CIU201000022D000I CIU201000022D000Q	CIU201000022D000T CIU201000022D000X CIU201000022D000Z	CIS201000022D000I CIS201000022D000Q
Wages and salaries for office and administrative support workers	CIU202000022D000A CIU202000022D000I CIU202000022D000Q	CIU202000022D000T CIU202000022D000X CIU202000022D000Z	CIS202000022D000I CIS202000022D000Q
Total compensation for transportation and material moving workers	CIU201000052D000A CIU201000052D000I CIU201000052D000Q	CIU201000052D000T CIU201000052D000X CIU201000052D000Z	CIS201000052D000I CIS201000052D000Q
Wages and salaries for transportation and material moving workers	CIU202000052D000A CIU202000052D000I CIU202000052D000Q	CIU202000052D000T CIU202000052D000X CIU202000052D000Z	CIS202000052D000I CIS202000052D000Q
Footnotes: (1) Not seasonally adjusted

More Information

For more information on the classification systems used in the NCS, see Classification systems used by the National Compensation Survey. For more information on the history of weights and classification systems in the ECI, see Reweighting and Recoding in the ECI.

Last Modified Date: June 15, 2023