July 01, 2005 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Wages in for-profit and nonprofit private hospitals

A study of data from the July 2003 National Compensation Survey shows that the average hourly rate for all workers in for-profit hospitals, $19.26, was lower than the average hourly rate for all workers in nonprofit hospitals, $20.16.

[Chart data—TXT]

Full-time workers in for-profit hospitals also had a lower average hourly rate than their not-for-profit counterparts, but part-time workers in for-profit and nonprofit hospitals had nearly identical average hourly rates. 

The lower average wage rate in for-profit hospitals may be due to the fact that the for-profit hospitals were smaller than the hospitals classified as nonprofit. Of the private for-profit hospitals studied, only 13 percent employed more than 2,500 workers. But of the private nonprofit hospitals studied, 28 percent had more than 2,500 workers.

These data are from the BLS National Compensation Survey. For more information, see "Wages in Profit and Nonprofit Hospitals and Universities," by Karen P. Shahpoori and James Smith, in the June 2005 issue of Compensation and Working Conditions Online.