American workers' wages, salaries and benefits rose 3.6 percent in the year ended Sept. 30, the government said Tuesday.
The Labor Department said its Employment Cost Index accelerated slightly from the 3.5 percent advance a year earlier. Analysts had expected costs to remain in the 3.5 percent range.The index is considered one of the best gauges of wage inflation pressures.
Wages and salaries rose 3.0 percent and outpaced the 2.7 percent inflation rate for the period as measured by the department's Consumer Price Index.
This component, which accounts for 72 percent of total employment costs, had risen 2.7 percent a year earlier.
Benefit costs increased 4.9 percent, slower than the 5.2 percent advance in the year ended Sept. 30, 1992. A large proportion of benefit costs pay for health care.
The Clinton administration's proposed overhaul of the health care system is an attempt to rein in rising costs.
For the third quarter, overall employment costs rose 0.8 percent, a bit slower than the 0.9 percent advance during the April-June period and the smallest increase in five quarters.
Wages and salaries were up 0.9 percent, compared to a 0.6 percent advance in the second quarter. But benefit costs rose 0.8 percent, down from a 1.4 percent gain from April through June.
Analysts prefer to track the latest 12-month performance because it smooths out the volatility of the quarterly reports and provides a more accurate picture of inflationary trends.
In early 1990, employment costs were increasing at a 5.5 percent pace, year over year, including a 7.4 percent jump in benefits.
"However, the impact of the recession caused a pronounced slowdown in labor costs," economists at the Mitsubishi Bank in New York said.
By the third quarter of 1992, the index was up just 3.5 percent and stabilized around that level.
Then, the Mitsubishi economists said, costs slowly began to inch back up although the summer economic slowdown probably cooled any potential for further increases in wages and benefits.
Analysts said the slow economic recovery has created few new jobs and thus has provided employees little leverage to boost wages, salaries and benefits.
Still, if the economy were to speed up appreciably and businesses increased hiring substantially, workers would be in a stronger position to demand higher pay and more benefits.
Compensation cost increases in private industry were higher for goods-producing industries, up 4.0 percent, than for service industries, up 3.6 percent.
They also were slightly higher for blue-collar workers, 3.8 percent, than for white-collar workers, 3.7 percent, and service workers, 3.0 percent.
Compensation cost increases also were higher for union workers, up 4.2 percent, than for nonunion workers, which rose 3.6 percent. The pattern of higher union gains held true for the goods-producing industries, 4.6 percent and 3.7 percent, respectively, but not in the service industries, where both groups showed 3.5 percent increases.
Until 21/2 years ago, nonunion increases had exceeded those of union workers almost without exception for nearly a decade.