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Richard B. Carnes
P roductivity, as measured by output per employee hour, increased in 1989 in about 60 percent of the industries for which data are currently available. By comparison, in 1988, more than 75 percent of these same industries posted gains in productivity. In 1989, most industries that experienced productivity increases also showed gains in output. Similarly, for those industries with negative or no productivity growth, most showed declines in output.
This article includes indexes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics industry and government productivity measurement program and extends labor productivity measures through the year 1989; industry multifactor productivity measures through 1988; and Federal, State, and local government measures through fiscal year 1989.1 Table 1 shows labor productivity average annual percent changes for the long term (beginning year to 1989) and for 1984-89, and percent changes for 1987-88 and 1988-89 for all of the industry productivity measures. It includes, for the first time, labor productivity measures for frozen fruits and vegetables, rubber and plastic hose and belting, and a multifactor productivity measure for the farm and garden equipment industry.2 Indexes for most of the industry labor productivity measures for selected years between 1970 and 1989 are shown in table 47 of the Current Labor Statistics section of this publication.
This excerpt is from an article published in the May 1991 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. The full text of the article is available in Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format (PDF). See How to view a PDF file for more information.
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Footnotes
1 A full report, Productivity Measures for Selected
Industries and government Services, Bulletin 2349 (Bureau of
Labor Statistics, 1990), is available ($10) from the
Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office,
Washington, DC 20402,
or from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Publications Sales
Center, P.O. Box 2145, Chicago, IL 60690. A more recent version of this publication,
Bulletin 2378, which includes data through 1989 and a list of
recent BLS publications on productivity and technology, is
forthcoming. For a discussion of concepts, methods, and sources,
see "Productivity Measures: Industries and Government,"
reprint of chapter 11 of the BLS handbook of Methods, Bulletin
2285 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1988). See also, Productivity:
A Selected Annotated Bibliography, 1983-87, Bulletin 2360
(Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1990).
2 See John W. Ferris and Virginia L. Klarquist, "Productivity in the rubber and plastics hose and belting industry," Monthly Labor Review, July 1990, pp. 26-31. See also, Edna Falk and Diane Litz, forthcoming Monthly Labor Review article on multifactor productivity in the farm and garden equipment industry.
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