Hourly employer costs for legally required benefits in private industry averaged $3.11 in September

In September 2023, total employer compensation costs for private industry workers averaged $41.53 per hour worked. Wages and salaries averaged $29.34 per hour worked and accounted for 70.6 percent of employer costs, while benefit costs averaged $12.19 per hour worked and accounted for the remaining 29.4 percent.

Employer costs for legally required benefits for private industry workers averaged $3.11 per hour worked in September 2023. Among occupational groups, legally required benefit costs for management, professional, and related occupations were $4.57. Costs for natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations were $3.88, followed by production, transportation, and material moving occupations ($2.83), sales and office occupations ($2.38) and service occupations ($1.91).

Legally required benefits for private industry workers in September 2023 included Social Security (averaging $1.99 per hour worked), Medicare ($0.49), workers’ compensation ($0.46), state unemployment insurance ($0.14), and federal unemployment insurance ($0.03).

These data are from the Employer Costs for Employee Compensation program and are not seasonally adjusted. To learn more, see "Employer Costs for Employee Compensation — September 2023." We also have more charts on the latest Employer Costs for Employee Compensation news release.