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Changes affecting the Employment Cost Index: an overview
Richard E. Caroll
Several simultaneous changes
occurred with the release of the March 2006
Employment Cost Index (ECI).1
The Bureau of Labor Statistics changed the way the ECI
classifies industries and occupations by switching from the Standard Industrial
Classification (SIC) to the North American Industry
Classification System (NAICS) and from the Occupational
Classification System (OCS) developed for use in the 1990
decennial census to the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC)
system. At the same time, the Bureau updated the base weights used to calculate
the index in order to reflect both the new classification systems and changes in
the industrial and occupational mix of the Nation’s workforce. BLS
also changed the way the ECI accounts for missing data and
computes seasonal adjustments.
One of the most visible changes was the rebasing of the index. The new base is December 2005. All published ECI series were affected and have the same common base. The previous rebasing of the index was 17 years ago, in June 1989.
The articles in this issue of Monthly Labor Review cover the broad spectrum of changes introduced in the March 2006 release of the ECI. Taken together, these articles present the most significant changes to the index in many years. These changes will help ensure that the index remains an accurate measure of compensation costs in a dynamic economy.
This excerpt is from an article published in the April 2006 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. The full text of the article is available in Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format (PDF). See How to view a PDF file for more information.
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Footnotes
1 The
Employment Cost Index is part of the Bureau’s National Compensation Survey (NCS)
program. The NCS is an integrated survey program that provides data on a variety
of compensation measures in addition to the ECI. Wage data are published for the
Nation, regions, and selected areas. Also part of the NCS survey program is the
Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC) series, which shows employer
costs per hour worked for wages and salaries and individual benefits. Another
series is the benefits measures, which cover the incidence and detailed
provisions of selected employee benefit plans. Additional information on the NCS
program is available online at www.bls.gov/bls/wages.htm.
ECI data are available at www.bls.gov/ect.
National Compensation Survey -- Compensation Cost Trends
Related Monthly Labor Review articles
The
Employment Cost Index: what is it?—Sept.
2001.
Introducing
new weights for the Employment Cost Index.—Jun.
1985.
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