January 23, 2002 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Labor productivity in apparel stores in 1990s

Labor productivity in apparel stores increased at an average annual rate of 5.4 percent a year between 1990 and 1995 and 5.2 percent a year between 1995 and 1999.

[Chart data—TXT]

BLS publishes measures of labor productivity (output per hour) for four components of the apparel stores industry. Among these components, men’s and boys’ wear stores experienced the largest increase in average annual labor productivity growth between the first and second half of the decade, from 1.0 percent per year to 6.2 percent.

In women’s clothing stores, the growth rate of output per hour also rose between the two periods, from 5.6 percent in 1990-95 to 8.0 percent in 1995-99. 

In contrast, the growth of output per hour slowed in both family clothing and in shoe stores during the 1990s. In each of these industries, the growth rate was 3.1 percentage points lower in the 1995-99 period than in the 1990-95 period. 

This information is from the Industry Productivity Program. Data are subject to revision. Find out more in "Labor productivity in the retail trade industry, 1987-99," by Mark Sieling, Brian Friedman, and Mark Dumas, Monthly Labor Review, December 2001.

Related TED article:

• Faster retail productivity growth in second half of 1990s