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Employment Cost Index

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