August 19, 2003 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Manufacturing productivity in the second quarter

Productivity in the manufacturing sector—as measured by output per hour of all persons—grew 4.2 percent in the second quarter of 2003.

[Chart data—TXT]

Manufacturing productivity’s growth in the second quarter reflected a decline in output of 2.1 percent and a decline in hours of 6.1 percent. In the previous quarter, productivity in manufacturing rose 4.0 percent, reflecting decreases in output and hours of 0.7 and 4.5 percent, respectively.

In durable goods manufacturing, productivity rose 3.8 percent in the second quarter as output dropped 3.1 percent and hours of all persons fell 6.7 percent. In nondurable goods manufacturing, second-quarter productivity increased by 4.4 as output declined 1.0 percent and hours fell 5.2 percent.

These data are from the BLS Productivity and Costs program. Data are subject to revision. For more information, see the "Productivity and Costs, Second Quarter 2003" (PDF) (TXT), news release USDL 03-411—note that there are corrections to this news release for fourth quarter 2002 and first quarter 2003 data for manufacturing and nonfinancial corporations. This Editor’s Desk article was revised on August 29, 2003, to reflect these corrections. (Data for the second quarter of 2003 are unchanged from those originally reported by the Productivity and Costs program.) 

 Related TED article: 

• Productivity advances in second quarter