May 16, 2008 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Real average weekly earnings in April 2008

Real average weekly earnings fell by 0.5 percent from March 2008 to April 2008 after seasonal adjustment.

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

A 0.1-percent increase in average hourly earnings was offset by a 0.3-percent decrease in average weekly hours and a 0.2-percent increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W).

Average weekly earnings rose by 3.1 percent, seasonally adjusted, from April 2007 to April 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 April 2008," (PDF) (HTML) news release USDL 08-0665.