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Labour shortages and wages

76.9% percent of total employer compensation cost (wages and salaries share)

Wages and salaries were 76.9% of US private-industry employers' compensation cost for service occupations in June 2026 ($18.26 of $23.73 per hour worked), according to the BLS.

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Source

Figure
76.9% percent of total employer compensation cost (wages and salaries share)
Scope
United States (private industry) · June 2026
Type of figure
official statistic
Source
Primary Government statistics
Publisher
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Title
Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, Table 4. Private industry workers by occupational and industry group (June 2026)
Published
Date note
News release USDL-26-1494, 10:00 a.m. ET Wednesday, September 9, 2026
Accessed
Last verified
URL
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecec.t04.htm
Archived copy
No archived copy yet (the archive could not capture this page)
Link check
Resolves (HTTP 200), Oct 27, 2026

A table, not a sentence: read from Table 4, row 'Service occupations' (private industry workers): total compensation $23.73 per hour worked (100.0%), wages and salaries $18.26 (76.9%), total benefits $5.47 (23.1%), of which legally required benefits $2.08 (8.7%).

Caveats

  • 'Service occupations' is a broad BLS group (building and grounds cleaning, food preparation and serving, protective service, personal care, healthcare support); the ECEC news release does not publish janitors on their own, so this is a proxy for a cleaner's on-costs, not a janitor-specific figure.
  • Reading it as a multiplier (our arithmetic, not a BLS figure): employer cost ≈ wage ÷ 0.769 ≈ 1.30 × wage. It still leaves out supervision, supplies, equipment, overhead and a cleaning contractor's margin.
  • Same figure in BLS series CMU2020000300000P (2026 Q2 = 76.9; Q1 = 76.8), read via the BLS public API on 2026-10-27. All private industry: 70.0% (CMU2020000000000P). The same table shows 77.0% for service occupations in service-providing industries and 74.6% for the administrative and waste services industry (which includes janitorial services) across all its occupations.
  • Beginning with December 2026 data, ECEC will remove workers' compensation costs (BLS notice in the same release), so later shares are not strictly comparable.

Figures read in the BLS table on the access date and cross-checked against the BLS public API series CMU2020000300000P (editorial review, 2026-10-27).

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Cite this

APA

Whirrwork. (2026, October 27). Wages and salaries were 76.9% of US private-industry employers' compensation cost for service occupations in June 2026 ($18.26 of $23.73 per hour worked), according to the BLS [Statistic]. Whirrwork Research. Retrieved October 27, 2026, from https://whirrwork.com/research/stats/us-ecec-service-occupations-wage-share-2026q2/

Chicago

Whirrwork. “Wages and salaries were 76.9% of US private-industry employers' compensation cost for service occupations in June 2026 ($18.26 of $23.73 per hour worked), according to the BLS.” Whirrwork Research. Published October 27, 2026. Accessed October 27, 2026. https://whirrwork.com/research/stats/us-ecec-service-occupations-wage-share-2026q2/.

MLA

“Wages and salaries were 76.9% of US private-industry employers' compensation cost for service occupations in June 2026 ($18.26 of $23.73 per hour worked), according to the BLS.” Whirrwork Research, Whirrwork, 27 Oct. 2026, whirrwork.com/research/stats/us-ecec-service-occupations-wage-share-2026q2/. Accessed 27 Oct. 2026.

BibTeX

@misc{whirrwork_us_ecec_service_occupations_wage_share_2026q2,
  author       = {{Whirrwork}},
  title        = {{Wages and salaries were 76.9\% of US private-industry employers' compensation cost for service occupations in June 2026 (\$18.26 of \$23.73 per hour worked), according to the BLS}},
  howpublished = {Whirrwork Research},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = oct,
  url          = {https://whirrwork.com/research/stats/us-ecec-service-occupations-wage-share-2026q2/},
  urldate      = {2026-10-27},
  note         = {Original source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, Table 4. Private industry workers by occupational and industry group (June 2026) (2026-09-09). Licensed CC BY 4.0}
}

Original source (APA)

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2026, September 9). Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, Table 4. Private industry workers by occupational and industry group (June 2026). https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecec.t04.htm

For third-party figures, please credit the original source as well as (or instead of) Whirrwork.

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