WASHINGTON - An employment index used to track overall labor costs increased 0.6% for the first three months of 2011. The increase for the last quarter of 2010 was unchanged at a seasonally unadjusted 0.4% rate. The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the employment cost report this morning.
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The first-quarter ECI gain was predicted at 0.5% according to the median estimate of economists polled by Thomson Reuters.
The cost increase for private sector workers was 0.5% in the first quarter of 2011, the same as in the fourth quarter of 2010.
Analysts say employment cost increases began to pick up in 2009 as the economic recovery began, but have since stabilized.
