Cosmetics industry achieves long-term productivity gains, (EXCERPT), Monthly Labor Review Online, December 1982

Cosmetics industry achieves
long-term productivity gains

Patricia S. Wilder

As measured by output per employee hour, productivity in the cosmetics and other toiletries industry rose at an average annual rate of 4.0 percent from 1958 to 1980. The rate of growth was substantially higher than the 2.8-percent gain for all manufacturing.¹

The rise in productivity resulted from a rapid expansion in output, which increased at an average annual rate of 7.3 percent, and a more moderate increase in employee hours, 3.1 percent. Productivity gains have resulted primarily from a trend toward fewer and larger plants producing a greater level of output, and continued improvements in production and packaging operations, such as those of lipstick and toothpaste.

The movements in output per employee hour have not been steady. From 1958, annual increases in productivity ranged from 14.9 percent to 0.4 percent. Declines in productivity occurred in 6 years, the most recent and largest in 1980, when it dropped 11.4 percent. (See table 1.)

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Footnotes

1 The cosmetics and other toiletries industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing perfumes (Natural and synthetic), cosmetics, and other toilet preparations. This industry also includes establishments primarily engaged in blending and compounding perfume bases; and those manufacturing shampoos and shaving products, whether from soap or synthetic detergents. The industry is designated as SIC 2844 in the Office of Management and Budget's Standard Industrial Classification Manual, 1972. Data prior to 1958 are not comparable. All average annual rates of change are based on the linear least squares trends of the logarithms of the index numbers. Extensions of the indexes will appear in the annual BLS Bulletin, Productivity Measures for Selected Industries.,

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