Compensation costs in private industry averaged $34.77 per hour worked in September 2019

Employer costs for employee compensation for private industry workers averaged $34.77 per hour worked in September 2019. Wages and salaries averaged $24.38 per hour worked and accounted for 70.1 percent of these costs. Benefit costs averaged $10.38 and accounted for the remaining 29.9 percent. In the utilities industry, total compensation costs averaged $63.68 per hour worked in September; benefits accounted for 39.6 percent of compensation costs in the industry.

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Chart Data Private industry employer costs per hour worked for employee compensation by industry, September 2019 Industry Total compensation Wages and salaries Benefits All workers $34.77 $24.38 $10.38 Utilities 63.68 38.47 25.21 Information 58.32 39.22 19.10 Financial activities 47.97 32.20 15.77 Educational services 47.66 34.32 13.34 Professional and business services 41.48 29.87 11.62 Construction 40.45 28.05 12.40 Manufacturing 40.01 26.19 13.81 Transportation and warehousing 39.14 25.24 13.89 Wholesale trade 37.80 26.71 11.08 Health care and social assistance 36.18 25.31 10.87 Other services 29.52 21.58 7.94 Retail trade 20.54 15.54 5.00 Leisure and hospitality 15.80 12.40 3.40

Total employer compensation costs in leisure and hospitality averaged $15.80 per hour worked in September. Benefits accounted for 21.5 percent of this total.

These data are from the Employment Cost Trends program. To learn more, see "Employer Costs for Employee Compensation — September 2019." We also have more charts on employer costs for employee compensation.