Only about one-third of HR professionals who responded to a survey from the Society for Human Resource Management said the recession didn't have any effect on their employee benefit packages, with 9 percent reporting it had a "large" affect on what they were able to keep providing to their employees.
Sixty-three percent say the economic recession negatively affected their organization's employee benefit offerings "to some extent" over the past year.
According to the report, must haves like "family-friendly" benefits remain largely unchanged from last year while several types of housing and relocation benefits took a hit.
The percent of payroll paid on benefits holds steady in 2010 when compared with 2009. On average 19 percent of an employee's annual salary was spent on mandatory benefits (like worker's compensation and Social Security), 18 percent on voluntary, and 11 percent on pay for time not worked benefits. In 2009, HR professionals reported 20 percent of payroll costs were spent on mandatory benefits, 19 percent for voluntary benefits, and 11 percent for paid leave benefits.
