Remuneration/revenue trends – US versus Europe

The graph below was created using Google’s graph tools.

This line graph shows the percentages that employee remuneration is of total company revenue for five years, 2004 to 2009, for United States companies and for European companies.  Remuneration is total compensation plus benefits.

Although the United States data shows a significant decline in the percentage from 2008 to 2009, the United States has on average a 6% better remuneration for employees, as a percentage of revenues, than Europe.

Also, the substantive decrease in remuneration percentage from 2008 to 2009 (5.5%) for the United States versus a slight increase for Europe (0.3%) might show that United States companies can more readily adjust to adversity (e.g., the world-wide financial problems around 2009).

Data in the graph was obtained from the PricewaterhouseCoopers’ study “Managing People in a Changing World – Key Trends in Human Capital – A Global Perspective” published in 2010.  You can read this study by clicking here.