Glossary of Terms
These definitions are used for the purposes of this report. Definitions originated from the Bureau, the EDD, or CalHR.
Annual Hours Worked -The Bureau calculates Annual Hours Worked as follows: add annual scheduled hours plus any overtime hours worked during the year, then subtract all vacation, holiday, and personal leave hours accrued as well as sick leave hours used during the year.
Annual Leave - Annual Leave is a consolidated leave plan. Consolidated leave plans provide a single amount of time off for workers to use for a number of purposes, such as vacation, illness, and personal business. Upon separation or retirement, state employees are compensated for any unused hours.
Annual Scheduled Hours -This is the total number of hours in a year that workers are scheduled to work. Most full-time workers are scheduled to work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, which equates to 2,080 annual scheduled hours.
Bargaining Units - A group of employees working in similar classifications or occupations represented by a union for bargaining purposes.
Base Salary - Wages paid for work performed during a unit of time, such as monthly. Base salary does not include overtime or incentive pay.
Bureau -The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is part of the Department of Labor and is the principal fact-finding agency for the federal government in the broad field of labor economics and statistics.
CB/ID - Collective Bargaining Identifier (CB/ID) refers to a three‐digit code that is assigned to each job classification. CB/ID designates if a classification is rank-and-file (R), managerial (M), supervisory (S), confidential (C), exempt/excluded (E), or unassigned (U); as well as the collective bargaining unit the classification is aligned to, if applicable. For example, CB/IDs for Bargaining Unit 1 and its related excluded employees look like this: R01, M01, and S01.
Defined Benefit Retirement Plan - A defined benefit retirement plan provides employees with guaranteed retirement benefits that are based on a benefit formula. A participant's retirement age, length of service, and pre-retirement earnings may affect the benefit received.
Defined Contribution Retirement Plan - A defined contribution retirement plan specifies the level of employer and employee contributions (retirement savings) and places those contributions into individual employee accounts. Retirement benefits are based on the level of contributions, plus earnings.
Disability Insurance - Disability insurance pays part of a worker's wages if he or she has to stop working because of a non-work-related illness or injury.
Employee Benefit Incidence and Provisions - The Bureau produces this report, which displays the percentage of workers with access to and participation in employer provided benefit plans (such as retirement, health care, life insurance, short-term and long-term disability insurance, and paid leave benefits).
ECEC - The Bureau produces the Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC) report, which shows employer costs per hour worked for wages and individual benefits. Cost data are presented in both dollar amounts and as percentages of compensation.
ECI - The Bureau produces the Employment Cost Index (ECI), which is a measure of the change in the cost of labor. The series measures changes in compensation costs (wages and salaries and costs for employee benefits).
EDD - The Employment Development Department (EDD) administers the state's payroll tax program and offers a variety of services to Californians under the Job Service, Unemployment Insurance (UI), State Disability Insurance (SDI), Workforce Investment, and Labor Market Information programs.
Employee Merit Awards - There are four merit awards given to qualifying state employees in California. 1) Employee Suggestion Program (ESP) – Employees formally submit their ideas to reduce or eliminate state expenditures or improve the safety or the operation of the state. 2) Medal of Valor (MOV) – The highest honor California bestows upon its public servants. 3) Superior Accomplishment Award (SAA) – Departments may award employees for job performance resulting in exceptional contribution to improving state government. 4) The 25 Year/Retirement Service Award – Employees with 25 years of state service and retiring employees with 25 years or more of state service may receive a memento.
Flex Elect - The State of California's Flex Elect program offers two types of employee benefits: pre-tax reimbursement accounts for out-of-pocket medical and dependent care expenses, and cash-in-lieu of state-sponsored health and/or dental benefits for employees who have other qualifying group health coverage or other dental coverage.
Health Insurance Plan - Insurance plans that include coverage for one or more of the following: medical care, dental care, and vision care.
Holiday Bonus - Payment to employees as a holiday gift. For State of California employees, in 2021, the Governor granted employees four hours of paid Informal Time Off (ITO) leave to use on either Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve. ITO was calculated as a Holiday Bonus.
Holiday Leave - Holidays are days off from work on days of special religious, cultural, social, or patriotic significance on which work and business ordinarily cease.
Holiday Premium Pay - Payment for working a designated holiday; usually an add-on to a base rate.
Implicit Subsidy - The implicit rate is an inherent subsidy of retiree healthcare costs by active employee healthcare costs when healthcare premiums paid by retirees and actives are the same.
Involuntary Separation - Involuntary separations include absent without leave (AWOL), death, dismissal, failure to meet employee conditions, termination with fault, illegal appointment, and resignation with fault.
Legally Required Benefits - Legally required benefits include the employer's costs for Social Security, Medicare, Federal and State unemployment insurance, and workers' compensation. Most peace officers, firefighters, and safety employees do not participate in Social Security.
Life Insurance - A contract that pays the beneficiary a set sum of money upon the death of the policyholder. These plans pay benefits usually in the form of a lump sum, but they may also be distributed as an annuity.
Longevity Pay - Payment to an employee based on seniority or length of service with an employer.
Long-Term Disability - Provides a monthly benefit to employees who, due to a non-work-related injury or illness, are unable to perform the duties of their normal occupation or any other, for periods of time extending beyond their short-term disability or sickness or accident insurance.
Market Average - To calculate the “Market Average," CalHR multiplied the Bureau's estimated number of workers in an occupation for an employer group by its total compensation. Totals for the three employer groups were then summed, then divided by the total number of employees for all three groups to find the Market Average.
Mean - The mean is the arithmetic average of a group of numbers.
Median - The median is the midpoint of a group of numbers after sorting in ascending or descending order.
NCS - The National Compensation Survey is a detailed compensation survey conducted by the Bureau. The NCS produces three separate reports: the Employment Cost Index (ECI), the Employee Benefit Incidence and Provisions, and the Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC).
Occupation - A set of activities or tasks that employees are paid to perform. Employees that perform essentially the same tasks are in the same occupation, whether or not they work in the same industry. Some occupations are concentrated in a few particular industries; other occupations are found in many industries.
OES - The Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) Survey is an annual labor market survey of private sector, local, state and federal government wages. The survey is conducted jointly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and State Workforce Agencies, such as the California Employment Development Department.
OPEB - Other Post-Employment Benefits (OPEB) are benefits other than pensions received in retirement. OPEB generally takes the form of health insurance and dental, vision, prescription, or other healthcare benefits provided to eligible retirees, including, in some cases, their beneficiaries. It may also include some types of life insurance, legal services, and other benefits.
OPM - The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is the federal government's chief human resources agency and personnel policy manager, directing human resources policy; administering retirement, healthcare, and insurance programs; and providing oversight of merit-based and inclusive hiring into the federal government's civil service.
Overtime Pay - Payment over and above the employee's regular pay for working in excess of a specified number of hours per day or per week.
Paid Leave - Leave from work (or pay in lieu of time off) provided on an annual basis and normally taken in blocks of days or weeks by an employee. Vacation, sick and holiday paid leave are the most common.
Personal Leave - Personal leave is a general-purpose leave benefit, used for reasons important to the individual employee, but not otherwise provided by other forms of leave. Some employers place restrictions on the purposes for which personal leave may be used. State employees receive Professional Development Days (PDD) which fall into this category.
Private Sector - The private sector is comprised of for-profit and not-for-profit businesses and organizations. By contrast, the public sector is made up of government employers.
Retirement Plans - Includes defined benefit pension plans and defined contribution retirement plans.
Related Excluded - Employees in classifications that do not have collective bargaining rights under the Ralph C. Dills Act, but whose job duties are related to rank-and-file employees in a bargaining unit. These employees are generally designated managerial, confidential, exempt, or supervisory.
Retirement Rate - The retirement rate is calculated by dividing the count of all service and disability retirements for the year by the annual average number of employees.
Shift Differential - Payment over and above an employee's regular pay for working a nonstandard shift, typically evenings, nights, and weekends.
Sick Leave -Employer-paid time off offered to employees to compensate for time away from work while sick or injured.
Short-Term Disability - Provides short-term (typically 26 weeks) income protection to employees who are unable to work due to a non-work-related accident or illness.
SOC - Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system is a list of defined occupations maintained by the federal government's Office of Management and Budget. It has been adopted by federal statistical agencies to classify workers into occupational categories for the purpose of collecting, calculating, or disseminating data. The 2018 SOC system contains 867 detailed occupations.
State Classification - A defined state job. The State of California maintains definitions and salaries for approximately 2,800 civil service classifications.
Supplemental Pay - Supplemental pay includes overtime and premium pay for work in addition to the regular work schedule (such as weekends and holidays), shift differentials, and nonproduction bonuses (such as referral bonuses and lump-sum payments provided in lieu of wage increases).
Turnover Rate -The turnover rate is calculated by dividing the count of all voluntary and involuntary separations, and retirements for the year by the annual average number of employees.
Unemployment Insurance - A joint federal-state program, established in 1935 under the Social Security Act, under which state administered funds obtained through payroll taxes provide payments to eligible unemployed persons.
Vacancy Rate - The vacancy rate is the average vacancy rate for the calendar year. To calculate the vacancy rate, full-time equivalent vacant positions are divided by established full‐time equivalent positions. (Employees hired into blanket positions are not included. Blanket positions are intended to be used for temporary, seasonal, or intermittent workload.)
Vacation Leave - Time off from work normally taken in days or weeks that provide employees with a rest or break from work. The amount of time-off may vary based on an employee's length-of-service with the employer or it may be a fixed number of days or weeks.
Value of Paid Leave - Vacation, annual leave, holiday, and other employer paid leave hours accrued (and assumed used) are added to sick leave hours used during the year. This number is multiplied by an hourly rate for paid leave to find the annual cost to the employer.
Voluntary Separation Rate - The voluntary separation rate is calculated by dividing the count of all voluntary separations (not including retirements) for the year by the annual average number of employees.
Wage – OES - A wage includes commission, tips, deadheading pay, guaranteed pay, on‐call pay, hazard pay, incentive pay, piece rate, portal‐to‐portal pay, production bonuses, and cost‐of‐living allowances.
Wage – NCS - A wage includes commission, tips, deadheading pay, guaranteed pay, on‐call pay, hazard pay, incentive pay, piece rate, portal‐to‐portal pay, production bonuses, and cost‐of‐living allowances.
Same as above only longevity and recruitment and retention bonuses are not included in the wage.
Weekend Premium Pay -Payment over and above an employee's regular pay for working on a Saturday, Sunday, or other non-scheduled workday.
Workers' Compensation - Workers' compensation provides wage replacement and medical benefits to employees injured in the course of employment. This is a legally required benefit paid by the employer.
