Nonprofits And Government Employers Offer The Best Benefits

Large nonprofit organizations, followed by government agencies and educational services, provide the best overall benefits packages to their employees, a study by Mercer Human Resource Consulting found.

According to Mercer’s "2004 Spotlight on Benefits Report," an analysis of the benefit programs of more than 1,000 large U.S. employers, nonprofit organizations offer total benefits at 128% of the market median, government employers at 127% of the median, and educational services at 121% of the median.

Industries in the for-profit sector offering the highest benefit levels in 2004 were utilities (117% of the median), mining (114%), insurance (109%), pharmaceuticals (108%), and chemical manufacturing (108%). By contrast, the industries offering the lowest benefit levels were accommodation and food services (64%), retail (75%), and wholesale (75%).

Broken down by benefit type, employers providing the most generous benefit levels in 2004 were government agencies, which offered health benefits at 134% of the market median; the mining sector, which offered retirement benefits at 138% of the median; and educational services, which offered time loss benefits at 116% of the median. On the other end of the spectrum, the accommodation and food service sectors provided the lowest levels of all three types of benefits.

The report also looked at benefit levels by geographic region. While employers in the Northeast continued to offer the highest benefit levels in 2004 at 108% of the market median, these levels were down from 111% in 2001. By contrast, employers in the Southeast offered benefits at 98% of the median in 2004, up from 93% in 2001. Employers in the South Central and West Coast regions also saw their percentage of the market median grow between 2001 and 2004, but organizations in the North Central region fell from above the median to below during this period.

"While it is necessary for employers to develop their benefit programs based on their unique business and human capital needs, they also need to understand how their organization’s benefit programs stack up against other organizations in the same industry or geographic location," said Mercer consultant Kent Gregory. "Having this kind of comparative benefits information helps employers stay competitive for top talent."