Employee Benefits in Medium and Large Private Establishments, 1997 technical note

Technical note

     The Employee Benefits Survey (EBS) estimates are one of the products
of the National Compensation Survey (NCS), an integrated program of
compensation surveys conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  These
products also include estimates of occupational wage rates for major
metropolitan areas, indices of current compensation costs and estimates of
the rates of change in those costs (available for the nation and broad
geographic regions), and estimates of the average employer costs (in
dollars) for employee compensation and its major components (wages and
salaries and the various types of benefit categories).

     The establishment sample from which the EBS data are collected is
periodically updated.  An explanation of sampling and estimation procedures
will be provided in the forthcoming bulletin, Employee Benefits in Medium
and Large Private Establishments, 1997.

     There are no measures of standard errors for the 1997 survey
estimates.  Therefore, caution is advised when comparing the 1997 estimates
with those of previous years in which the survey of medium and large
establishments had been conducted.

     In 1996, the Bureau of Labor Statistics changed the methods of
estimation to account for approximately 7 percent of employees within the
scope of the survey unaccounted for in previous years.  These employees
were in occupations that ceased to exist within an establishment after that
establishment began participating in the survey.  No replacement
occupations could be chosen.  The estimation methods for the years prior to
1996 are not strictly comparable to those used in years after 1996.
Because the exact characteristics of the workers unaccounted for in the
years prior to 1996 are not known, caution is advised when comparing
estimates for smaller employee groups.

Availability of EBS data

     More detailed data from the 1997 survey will appear in a bulletin,
Employee Benefits in Medium and Large Private Establishments, 1997.  This
bulletin will be published in the summer of 1999.  However, the survey
tabulations will be posted on the BLS Internet site about a month earlier,
and complete tabular results will be available upon written request.  For
details on acquiring survey results from the Internet site or upon written
request, call 202-606-6222.

     Benefits data for employees in small private establishments have been
published in bulletins for 1990, 1992, and 1994.  The 1996 bulletin will be
available in early 1999.

     Benefits data for employees in medium and large private establishments
have been published since 1979.  Data comparable to those presented in this
release have been published in bulletins for 1991, 1993, and 1995.

     Benefits data for employees in state and local governments have been
published in bulletins for 1987, 1990, 1992, and 1994.  A survey of
benefits in state and local governments is being conducted for 1998.

     Data from sequential years have been combined to produce estimates of
benefit incidence for the civilian economy (private industry and state and
local governments).  These estimates have been produced for 1990-91, 1991-
92, 1992-93, 1993-94, and 1994-95.  They have appeared in a variety of
published media.  For example, see Ann C. Foster, "Employee Benefits in the
United States, 1994-95," Compensation and Working Conditions, Spring
1998, pp. 56-61.

               Visit the Employee Benefits Survey home page
                    (http://stats.bls.gov/ebshome.htm)

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