April 18, 2008 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Real average weekly earnings, March 2008

Real average weekly earnings rose by 0.2 percent from February 2008 to March 2008 after seasonal adjustment.

Composition of change in real average weekly earnings of production or nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls, March 2008
[Chart data—TXT]

Increases of 0.3 percent in both average weekly hours and average hourly earnings were partially offset by a 0.4-percent increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W).

Average weekly earnings rose by 3.3 percent, seasonally adjusted, from March 2007 to March 2008. After deflation by the CPI-W, average weekly earnings decreased by 1.0 percent.

These earnings data are from the Current Employment Statistics Program. These data are for production and nonsupervisory workers in private nonfarm establishments. Earnings data are preliminary and subject to revision. Find out more in "Real Earnings in March 2008" (PDF) (HTML), news release USDL 08-0506.