The average compensation per job in North Dakota rose to $37,635 in 2005, an increase of 4.4 percent per year, on average, since 1998.

Employee compensation consists of wage and salary disbursements, and employer contributions to employee pension and insurance funds, and for government social insurance.

On average, employer contributions in North Dakota grew faster than actual wages and salaries between 1998 and 2005. Employer contributions in the state have grown an average of 7.1 percent annually since 1998. Wages and salaries grew by 5.1 percent annually.

This month's ""Population Bulletin,"" a monthly publication from the North Dakota State Data Center at North Dakota State University, focuses on average compensation per job data released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) at http://www.bea.gov. BEA provides compensation data for the nation, states, counties and metropolitan areas.

Nationally, job compensation grew an average of 4.1 percent per year between 1998 and 2005, reaching $49,775. This rate of growth was higher than inflation, which, on average, grew by 2.6 percent per year since 1998.

While compensation in North Dakota is experiencing consistent and positive growth, the average compensation of $37,635 earned in North Dakota still lags behind most states and was 24.4 percent below the national average of $49,775 in 2005. Three other states had lower averages than North Dakota: Mississippi ($37,349), Montana ($37,019) and South Dakota ($36,123). Connecticut had the highest average per job compensation in 2005 ($63,279), followed by New York ($62,069) and Massachusetts ($59,642).

“This is the first time that overall compensation figures have been released by the BEA,"" says Richard Rathge, State Data Center director. ""What I find most intriguing about the new data is that states ranking lowest in average wage and salary disbursements are among the highest in terms of the proportion that employers contribute to the total compensation package. Furthermore, North Dakota ranks 12th highest in the proportion that employers contribute to the total compensation package (20.8 percent), while Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts rank in the bottom six states at less than 18.2 percent."

NDSU Agriculture Communication