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Compensation costs for private industry workers rise 2.6 percent for the year ending December 2017

February 02, 2018

For the year ending December 2017, compensation costs for private industry workers rose 2.6 percent. Wages and salaries, which make up about 70 percent of compensation costs, increased 2.8 percent over that period. For workers in the leisure and hospitality industry, compensation costs rose 3.6 percent over the year, the largest increase among private industries. Wages and salaries for leisure and hospitality workers increased 3.8 percent over that period, also the largest increase among private industries.     

12-month percent change in employment cost indexes for private industry workers by industry, March 2017
Industry Total compensation Wages and salaries

Leisure and hospitality

3.6% 3.8%

Trade, transportation, and utilities

3.0 3.2

Professional and business services

3.0 2.9

Manufacturing

2.7 2.5

All workers

2.6 2.8

Other services (except public administration)

2.4 2.4

Construction

2.4 2.5

Information

2.4 2.1

Financial activities

2.0 2.1

Education and health services

2.0 2.2

From December 2016 to December 2017, other industries with compensation costs that increased 3.0 percent or more were trade, transportation, and utilities, and professional and business services (3.0 percent each). The industries with the lowest over-the-year percentage increases in compensation costs for December 2017 were education and health services and financial activities (2.0 percent each).

Information and financial activities had the lowest over-the-year increase in wages and salaries for the year ending December 2017, at 2.1 percent each.

These data are from the Employment Cost Trends program and are not seasonally adjusted. To learn more, see "Employment Cost Index—December 2017" (HTML) (PDF) and charts related to the Employment Cost Index news release.

SUGGESTED CITATION

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, Compensation costs for private industry workers rise 2.6 percent for the year ending December 2017 at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/compensation-costs-for-private-industry-workers-rise-2-point-6-percent-for-the-year-ending-december-2017.htm (visited March 29, 2024).

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