March 07, 2007 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Fourth-quarter productivity growth revised downward

In the nonfarm business sector, productivity—as measured by output per hour—increased at a revised seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2006. This represented a downward revision from the preliminary productivity estimate of 3.0 percent.

Previous and revised productivity and related measures, nonfarm business, fourth quarter 2006 (quarterly percent change at seasonally adjusted annual rates)
[Chart data—TXT]

Output in the nonfarm business sector increased at an annual rate of 2.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2006; the preliminary estimate was 4.2 percent.

Hours of all persons—employees, proprietors, and unpaid family workers—rose 0.9 percent, following an initially reported estimate of 1.2 percent.

These data are from the BLS Productivity and Costs program. Data in this report are seasonally adjusted annual rates. These estimates are subject to revision. Additional information is available in "Productivity and Costs, Fourth Quarter and Annual Averages, 2006 Revised" (PDF) (TXT), news release USDL 07-0338.

Happy 10th Birthday, TED!

The very first issue of The Editor's Desk (TED) was posted on September 28, 1998. TED was the first online-only publication of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For 10 years, BLS has been committed to posting a new TED article each business day, for a total of over 2,400 articles so far.

Find out more about the story of TED