February 01, 2007 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Compensation costs in private industry up 3.2 percent in 2006

Compensation costs in private industry rose 3.2 percent in the year ended December 2006, compared with a 2.9-percent increase in December 2005.

[Chart data—TXT]

The components of compensation differed in their rates of change. While increases in wages and salaries became greater, the sharp increases in benefit costs seen over the past several years slowed to a more moderate pace.

Wages and salaries rose 3.2 percent in the year ended December 2006, greater than the gains of 2.5 percent in December 2005 and 2.6 percent in December 2004. Benefit costs gained 3.1 percent for the year ended December 2006, slowing from increases of 4.0 percent for the year ended December 2005 and 6.7 percent for the year ended December 2004.

These data are from the BLS Compensation Cost Trends program. For more information, see "Employment Cost Index – December 2006" (PDF) (TXT), news release USDL 07-0158.