Benefits October 25, 2007

Child Care Assistance Ranks as Most Prevalent Nontraditional Benefit

October 25, 2007 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Child care assistance is the most prevalent nontraditional benefit that employers offer, followed closely by long-term insurance benefits, according to a recent analysis by the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
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The BLS National Compensation Survey (NCS) found the following percentage of employees had access to:

  • Employer assistance for child care, 15%;
  • Long-term care insurance, 12%;
  • Adoption assistance, 11%;
  • Flexible workplace, 5%;
  • Subsidized commuting, 5%; and
  • Employer-provided home personal computer, 2%.

Workers in the management, professional and related occupations were most likely to have access to all six of the benefits examined by the survey, while employees in the natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations were the least likely to be offered these benefits.

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Workers employed at companies with 100 or more workers had much greater access to almost every type of quality-of-life benefit than workers employed in smaller firms, with those at large firms being four to five times as likely as workers in smaller firms to have access to child care, adoption, and long-term care insurance benefits.

About 15% of full-time workers had access to child care and long-term care benefits, while fewer than 10% of part-time workers had such access. Part-time workers were less than half as likely as full-time workers to have access to adoption assistance, according to the survey.

Union workers had greater access to child care assistance, adoption assistance and long-term care insurance than did nonunion workers.

Flexible workplace arrangements were more prevalent among nonunion workers than among union workers, most likely due to union workers’ greater representation in manufacturing and construction occupations than in professional, managerial, and office and administrative occupations, which had a lower percentage of unionized workers, according to the survey.

For the BLS survey report go here .

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