Workers’ comp cost by industry: what employers pay per hour worked

What the BLS figures measure

The figures on this page come from the Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC) survey, part of the BLS National Compensation Survey. ECEC reports what employers spend on wages and on each of 18 benefits, expressed as a cost per hour worked. Workers’ compensation is counted among the legally required benefits, together with Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance⁠⁴.

Four features of the method decide how you can use the numbers:

• Per hour worked, averaged over everyone. BLS includes all workers in the benefit cost estimates, including those who do not have or use a given benefit⁠⁴. A sector’s figure is its total workers’ comp cost spread across every hour its employees worked, full-time and part-time alike.
• Who is left out. The private-industry series excludes the self-employed, private household workers and the agricultural sector. Federal workers are outside the survey altogether⁠⁴.
• Sample. The June 2026 private-industry estimates come from a probability sample of about 28,300 occupational observations (jobs) at about 6,600 establishments⁠⁴.
• One point in time. The reference period is June 2026, released September 9, 2026⁠¹. ECEC gives no state figures; its breakdowns include industry, occupation, establishment size, union status and census region.

ECEC shows a cost per hour, not a rate per $100 of payroll, and it covers every employer in a sector: high-risk and low-risk jobs, experience-rated and small accounts, insured and self-insured alike. It does not give the premium for any single business.

Workers’ comp is leaving the survey

BLS has announced that, with the March 2027 release of December 2026 data, ECEC will stop reporting workers’ compensation costs. Its stated reason is that workers’ comp “suffers from a substantially lower item response rate than other NCS benefits” and makes up only about 1 percent of total compensation⁠⁵. The September 2026 data, due December 16, 2026⁠¹, should therefore be the last ECEC release that includes workers’ comp. BLS’s published relative standard error for the June 2026 private-industry workers’ comp figure is 1.6%, against 1.7% for health insurance and 1.0% for wages; that measures sampling error, not any bias from the missing responses⁠¹².

Cost per hour by industry, June 2026

Average employer cost per employee hour worked for workers' compensation and for health insurance, averaged across all workers in the group, plus workers' compensation as a percent of total compensation. Group averages mix high- and low-risk jobs, so they are not a premium rate for any single business. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), National Compensation Survey, June 2026 (2026 Q2), private industry workers, released 9 Sep 2026.

Click a column header to sort. Goods-producing combines mining, construction and manufacturing; service-providing is every other private sector⁠². The health insurance column, from the same survey, shows how small workers’ comp is next to the main insured benefit.

Construction stands apart. Its $1.10 an hour is more than double manufacturing’s $0.49 and almost four times education and health services ($0.30)⁠³. Trade, transportation and utilities ($0.54) comes second among all sectors. It mixes trucking and warehousing, which are heavily rated classes, with retail stores, where wages are lower and rates are moderate.

Information ($0.42) sits almost exactly at the private-industry average even though most of its work is in offices. Its hourly cost is pushed up by pay, not by risk: information workers’ compensation averaged $84.28 an hour, the highest of the major sectors in the table, and workers’ comp is 0.5% of that⁠²⁠³. Workers’ comp premiums are charged on payroll, so the same class rate produces more dollars per hour when wages are higher.

Why leisure and hospitality costs little per hour but more per dollar of pay

Leisure and hospitality, which includes restaurants, bars, hotels and recreation, has the second-lowest cost per hour ($0.27) but one of the highest shares of compensation (1.2%), behind only construction (2.1%) and trade, transportation and utilities (1.4%)⁠³.

The two numbers diverge because of pay. Total compensation in leisure and hospitality averaged $21.33 an hour in June 2026, the lowest of the major sectors, and wages alone $17.25. For all private industry the figures were $46.89 and $32.82⁠². Full-time leisure and hospitality workers cost employers $27.95 an hour in total, part-time workers $17.21⁠¹. A small dollar amount is a large share of a small paycheck.

Dividing workers’ comp cost by wages (our calculation from ECEC Table 4 and the private-industry dataset; the per-hour figures are rounded to the cent, so treat these as approximate) puts it on the same footing as a premium rate, which insurers charge per $100 of payroll:

Scroll the table sideways to see every column.

Sources: BLS ECEC June 2026⁠²⁠³. ECEC wages exclude overtime and other supplemental pay, which BLS reports separately⁠⁴, so these figures run slightly higher than a cost per $100 of total payroll would.

Measured per $100 of wages, leisure and hospitality is above the private-industry average and close to manufacturing. Measured per hour, it looks like one of the cheapest sectors. For an owner budgeting a restaurant or hotel, the per-$100 view is the one that matches how the premium is billed.

Occupation groups

Average employer cost per employee hour worked for workers' compensation and for health insurance, averaged across all workers in the group, plus workers' compensation as a percent of total compensation. Group averages mix high- and low-risk jobs, so they are not a premium rate for any single business. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), National Compensation Survey, June 2026 (2026 Q2), private industry workers, released 9 Sep 2026.

Occupation cuts across industries: a bookkeeper at a roofing company counts under sales and office, a mechanic at a bank under construction and maintenance. Natural resources, construction and maintenance occupations cost $0.98 an hour and production, transportation and material moving $0.67, against $0.27 for sales and office jobs⁠³. Service occupations, such as cooks, cleaners and care aides, show the same pattern as leisure and hospitality: $0.34 an hour, but 1.4% of compensation, against 0.4% for management and professional jobs⁠³. Rating schedules make the same split: Ohio, Washington and Wyoming each have a separate low-rated class for clerical office work (8810, 4904 and 000010)⁠⁶⁠⁷⁠⁸, so the job mix inside a company changes its premium.

Establishment size

Average employer cost per employee hour worked for workers' compensation and for health insurance, averaged across all workers in the group, plus workers' compensation as a percent of total compensation. Group averages mix high- and low-risk jobs, so they are not a premium rate for any single business. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), National Compensation Survey, June 2026 (2026 Q2), private industry workers, released 9 Sep 2026.

Cost per hour is nearly flat across establishment sizes, between $0.41 and $0.44⁠³. Its share of compensation is not: 1.2% at establishments with fewer than 50 workers, 0.6% at those with 500 or more⁠³. With the dollar amount roughly constant, the falling share means total compensation per hour is higher at larger establishments, which the health insurance column also shows ($2.24 an hour under 50 workers, $6.07 at 500 or more)⁠³. ECEC does not break out why. It does not separate insured from self-insured employers, or premiums from claims paid under deductibles.

Union workers cost $0.93 an hour in workers’ comp, against $0.38 for nonunion workers⁠³. Regionally the West is highest at $0.62 and the South lowest at $0.30; the Pacific division (Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington) reaches $0.75⁠³. For state-level cost, see workers’ comp cost by state.

Official class rates for the same work

The BLS sector averages blend hundreds of job classes. The price an employer actually starts from is the class rate for its work, multiplied by payroll (or, in Washington, hours) and then adjusted by the experience modification. Ohio, Washington and Wyoming run monopolistic state funds that publish their full schedules; in other states insurers file their own rates on rating-bureau class tables that cannot be reproduced here. The tables below take classes that describe common work in the BLS sectors above. Ohio’s rates apply to payroll from July 1, 2026, and exclude the separate Disabled Workers’ Relief Fund assessment⁠⁶. Washington’s apply to hours from January 1, 2026, at an experience factor of 1.0⁠⁷. Wyoming’s apply from January 1, 2026, and use NAICS-based codes⁠⁸.

Construction. Residential carpentry and wood-frame building rank among the higher-rated classes in each schedule:

Base rates set by the state fund before experience modification. Ohio and Wyoming charge per $100 of payroll; Washington charges per hour worked, and part is withheld from wages. Other states’ insurers file their own rates; see where rates are published.

Leisure and hospitality. Restaurants are rated far below construction, and hotels higher than restaurants:

Base rates set by the state fund before experience modification. Ohio and Wyoming charge per $100 of payroll; Washington charges per hour worked, and part is withheld from wages. Other states’ insurers file their own rates; see where rates are published.

Trade and transportation. Trucking, part of the same BLS sector as retail, is rated at construction levels; retail stores are not:

Base rates set by the state fund before experience modification. Ohio and Wyoming charge per $100 of payroll; Washington charges per hour worked, and part is withheld from wages. Other states’ insurers file their own rates; see where rates are published.

Offices, finance and health care. Clerical and financial work carries the lowest rates; health care ranges from low for physicians’ offices to high for residential care:

Base rates set by the state fund before experience modification. Ohio and Wyoming charge per $100 of payroll; Washington charges per hour worked, and part is withheld from wages. Other states’ insurers file their own rates; see where rates are published.

How the rates compare with the BLS averages

Washington’s rates are per hour, the same unit as ECEC. Part of most Washington rates is withheld from workers’ wages. The employer’s share for restaurants and taverns (class 3905) is about $0.35 an hour of the $0.5126 total, and for clerical office work (4904) about $0.12 of $0.2223 (our calculation from L&I’s 2026 file: total rate minus the employee deduction)⁠⁷. The restaurant figure is above the BLS national average for leisure and hospitality ($0.27). The clerical figure is below the national average for financial activities ($0.23), which also covers real estate and rental work⁠³.

Ohio and Wyoming charge per $100 of payroll, the same unit as the per-$100-of-wages calculation above. Ohio’s restaurant class (9082, $0.5338) and Wyoming’s food services class (722000, $1.11) both sit below the national leisure and hospitality figure of about $1.57⁠³⁠⁶⁠⁸. Ohio’s residential carpentry rate (5645, $3.4595) is just above the construction figure of about $3.04, and Wyoming’s construction-of-buildings rate (236000, $2.55) is below it⁠⁶⁠⁸.

These comparisons have limits. Base rates are list prices before experience modification and any discount program. The ECEC averages are what employers actually paid after all of those, across every state. Ohio ranked 47th of 51 on Oregon’s 2024 rate index, and Wyoming and Washington 8th and 12th⁠¹¹ (see cost by state), so the three funds do not stand for the national price level either.

Worked example: the same hours in three states

To show how far class and state move the price, take 5,000 hours of restaurant work at the BLS leisure and hospitality wage of $17.25 an hour, which is $86,250 of payroll. This is our calculation, using base rates only, with no experience modification, assessments or minimum premium:

Scroll the table sideways to see every column.

Sources:⁠³⁠⁶⁠⁷⁠⁸. The Washington employer share is the total rate minus the 2026 employee deduction of $0.16165 per hour.

The same hours of work cost about four times as much at Washington’s employer share as at Ohio’s base rate, and more than five times counting the worker deduction, before either fund applies the employer’s claims history. Doing the calculation for residential carpentry, 2,000 hours at the BLS construction wage of $36.13 (payroll $72,260), gives about $2,500 in Ohio (class 5645), about $1,843 in Wyoming (236000) and $9,388 in Washington (0510, $7,808 of it the employer’s share), against $2,200 at the national construction average of $1.10 an hour (our calculation)⁠³⁠⁶⁠⁷⁠⁸.

For your own figure, use the class rate tables for Ohio, Washington and Wyoming, the workers’ comp calculator, and the class code guide to check which class your work belongs in.

What insurers report for small businesses by industry

Insurers and brokers publish per-policy figures for their own customers. They are a different kind of number from both of the above: a monthly premium per policy, for businesses of whatever size bought from that company, with no payroll or headcount given.

Insurer- and broker-reported figures from each company’s own customers, as published on its website; not a random sample of all businesses. Figures are rounded as published.

ERGO NEXT publishes average monthly workers’ comp costs by profession for its customers, with data updated April 2026. Its highest figure is construction ($160 a month) and its lowest accountants ($50)⁠⁹. Its disclosure describes the sample as customers who bought commercial property insurance, which looks like a copy error on the workers’ comp page⁠⁹. It also reports that 49% of its customers pay between $14 and $75 a month⁠⁹. Insureon reports a median of $54 a month ($643 a year) across its small-business customers, most of whom have fewer than five employees (page dated April 13, 2026)⁠¹⁰.

The spread between industries in these figures is much narrower than in the class rates. ERGO NEXT’s construction average is about three times its accountants’ average⁠⁹, while Washington’s wood-frame construction rate is about 21 times its clerical rate⁠⁷. A per-policy figure mixes rate with payroll size: a one-person contractor and a ten-person café can pay similar premiums at very different rates. Neither company says how many employees or how much payroll its average policy covers. Use these figures to sense-check a small-business quote, not as the cost of an industry.

Using these figures

ECEC is the only official source that compares workers’ comp cost across industries for the whole private economy. Use it to see how large workers’ comp is next to wages and health insurance in your sector, and to set a first estimate per hour of labor. Do not use it as a quote. A business’s premium depends on its class codes, its payroll in each, its state’s rates and its experience modification. Within one sector, those can put two employers’ costs several times apart, as the class rate tables show.

Sources

1. 1
   U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026 (news release, Sept. 9, 2026) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
2. 2
   U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, ECEC Table 4: Private industry workers by occupational and industry group, June 2026 Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
3. 3
   U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, ECEC private industry dataset (workers’ compensation and health insurance cost per hour worked, June 2026) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
4. 4
   U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation: Technical Note Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
5. 5
   U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Removing Workers’ Compensation Costs from the Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
6. 6
   Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, Bureau of Workers’ Compensation base rates effective July 1, 2026 (Ohio Administrative Code 4123-17-06, Appendix A) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
7. 7
   Washington State Department of Labor & Industries, 2026 Hourly Rates by Risk Classification Code and Fund Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
8. 8
   Wyoming Department of Workforce Services, State of Wyoming Workers’ Compensation 2026 Industry Base Rates by Classification Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
9. 9
   ERGO NEXT, How much does workers’ comp insurance cost? (data updated April 2026) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
10. 10
    Insureon, How much does workers’ compensation insurance cost? (page dated April 13, 2026) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
11. 11
    Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services, 2024 Oregon Workers’ Compensation Premium Rate Ranking Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
12. 12
    U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation: Relative Standard Errors, June 2026 Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑

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