The Employment Cost Index for private-industry workers – including wages, salaries and employers’ costs for benefits – last year rose 3.3 percent in the Northeast, compared with last year’s 3.5 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.
For the nation as a whole, private industry compensation costs rose 3.2 percent for the year ended December 2006, after rising 2.9 percent in 2005. The regional ECI rose 3.5 percent in the South, 3.0 percent in the West and 2.8 percent in the Midwest, the BLS said.
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Wage and salary costs (excluding cost of benefits) in the Northeast rose 3.2 percent in 2006, exceeding the region’s 2.9-percent increase in 2005. Over the past five years, the region’s ECI for wages and salaries has increased 15.6 percent, while the ECI for total compensation has risen 19.1 percent.
Wages and salaries also rose 3.2 percent nationwide, exceeding their 2005 gain of 2.5 percent. Regional gains ranged from 3.6 percent in the South to 2.6 percent in the Midwest – the only region where wage gains did not exceed those in 2005. Since December 2001, the national ECI for total compensation has risen 18.2 percent, while wages and salaries have risen 14.8 percent.
Retail prices, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, rose 3.0 percent last year in the Northeast, to 16.8 percent above their level five years earlier.
The national CPI rose 2.5 percent in 2006, to 14.2 percent higher than in December 2001.
Additional details are available at www.bls.gov.
