international labour cost comparisons

US $/hour	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
Australia	14.4	13.3	15.4	19.8	23.1	24.6
Brazil	3.5	3.0	2.6	2.7	3.0	3.2
Canada	16.5	16.2	16.7	19.4	21.4	23.7
China	0.6	0.7	0.8	0.9	1.0	1.1
Czech Republic	2.8	3.1	3.8	4.7	5.4	6.1
France	15.5	15.7	17.1	21.1	23.9	25.3
Germany	22.7	22.5	24.2	29.6	32.5	34.1
India	0.6	0.6	0.7	0.7	0.8	0.9
Italy	13.8	13.6	14.8	18.1	20.5	21.7
Japan	22.0	19.4	18.7	20.3	21.9	21.4
Kazakhstan	0.5	0.7	0.7	0.9	0.9	1.0
Korea	8.2	7.7	8.8	10.0	11.5	14.1
Mexico	2.2	2.5	2.6	2.5	2.5	2.5
Spain	10.7	10.8	11.9	15.0	17.1	17.6
Sweden	20.2	18.4	20.2	25.2	28.4	29.7
Taiwan	6.2	6.1	5.6	5.7	6.0	6.4
Ukraine	0.3	0.4	0.5	0.7	0.7	0.8
United Kingdom	16.7	16.8	18.3	21.2	24.7	26.0
United States	19.7	20.6	21.4	22.3	23.2	23.8

Labour Cost Notes

Information Sources
Sources (figures up to and including 2004; excluding China, India, Kazakhstan, Ukraine): U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2005 and all other estimates provided by Metals Consulting International Limited (MCI), based on recent ILO trends, MCI calculations, steel industry discussions and other public sources.

Definitions
The hourly compensation costs include (i) hourly direct pay and (ii) employer social insurance expenditures and other labour taxes. The hourly direct pay includes all payments made directly to the worker, before payroll deductions of any kind, consisting of (a) pay for time worked (basic time and piece rates plus overtime premiums, shift differentials, other premiums and bonuses paid regularly each pay period, and cost-of-living adjustments) and (b) other direct pay (pay for time not worked [vacations, holidays, and other leave, except sick leave], seasonal or irregular bonuses and other special payments, selected social allowances, and payments in kind). Social insurance expenditures and other labor taxes include employer expenditures for legally required insurance programs and contractual and private benefit plans (retirement and disability pensions, health insurance, income guarantee insurance and sick leave, life and accident insurance, occupational injury and illness compensation, unemployment insurance, and family allowances) and, for some countries, (d) other labour taxes. Readers should note that the above definition of hourly compensation costs is not the same as the International Labour Office (ILO) definition of hourly labour costs. The hourly compensation figures above do not include all items of labor costs. Recruitment, employee training, and plant facilities and services such as cafeterias and medical clinics are not included because this data is not available in many countries.

Raw Material and other Input Costs and Liquid Steel Cost
For current and historic steelmaking input costs, please visit our steelmaking input costs page, or to see how these input costs can be used together with labour costs to assess current steelmaking costs, visit our steel cost page.

To estimate the impact of a change in labour cost on the production costs of any steel product, or for other international employment cost estimates, please contact our economists for assistance.

Estimated international steelmaking labor costs