Technical note
TECHNICAL NOTES Labor Hours: Hours data for the labor productivity and cost measures include hours for all persons working in the sector-wage and salary workers, the self-employed and unpaid family workers. The primary source of hours and employment data is the BLS Current Employment Statistics (CES) program, which provides monthly survey data on the number of jobs held by wage and salary workers in nonfarm establishments. The CES also provides average weekly paid hours of production and nonsupervisory workers in these establishments. Weekly paid hours are adjusted to hours at work using data from the National Compensation Survey (NCS). The BLS Hours at Work survey, conducted for this purpose, was used for earlier years. The Office of Productivity and Technology estimates average weekly hours at work for nonproduction and supervisory workers using information from the Current Population Survey (CPS), the CES, and the NCS. Data from the CPS are used for farm labor, nonfarm proprietors, and nonfarm unpaid family workers. Estimates of labor input for government enterprises are derived from the CPS, the CES, and the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) prepared by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) of the Department of Commerce. The CES measures jobs, counting a person who is employed by two or more establishments at each place of employment. In contrast, the CPS features measures of employment that count each person only once and classify each person according to his or her primary job; hours worked at all jobs by that person accrue to his or her primary job. However, the CPS also collects more detailed information on employment and hours worked at primary jobs and all other jobs, separately. The BLS productivity measures use the more detailed information on employment and hours to assign all hours worked to the correct industrial sector and avoid duplicating hours data from the CES. Output: Business sector output is a chain-type, current-weighted index constructed after excluding from gross domestic product (GDP) the following outputs: general government, nonprofit institutions, and private households (including owner-occupied housing). Corresponding exclusions also are made in labor inputs. Business output accounted for about 78 percent of the value of GDP in 2000. Nonfarm business, which excludes farming, accounted for about 77 percent of GDP in 2000. Annual indexes for manufacturing and its durable and nondurable goods components are constructed by deflating current-dollar industry value of production data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census with deflators from the BLS. These deflators are based on data from the BLS producer price program and other sources. The industry shipments are aggregated using annual weights, and intrasector transactions are removed. Quarterly manufacturing output measures are based on the index of industrial production prepared monthly by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, adjusted to be consistent with annual indexes of manufacturing sector output prepared by BLS. Durables include the following 3-digit NAICS industries: wood product manufacturing; nonmetallic mineral product manufacturing; primary metal manufacturing; fabricated metal product manufacturing; machinery manufacturing; computer and electronic product manufacturing; electrical equipment and appliance manufacturing; transportation equipment manufacturing; furniture and related product manufacturing; and miscellaneous manufacturing. Nondurables include: food manufacturing; beverage and tobacco product manufacturing; textile mills; textile product mills; apparel manufacturing; leather and allied product manufacturing; paper manufacturing; printing and related support activities; petroleum and coal products manufacturing; chemical manufacturing; and plastics and rubber products manufacturing. Nonfinancial corporate output is a chain-type, current-weighted index calculated on the basis of the costs incurred and the incomes earned from production. The output measure excludes the following outputs from GDP: general government; nonprofit institutions; private households; unincorporated business; and those corporations classified as offices of bank holding companies, offices of other holding companies, or offices in the finance and insurance sector. Nonfinancial corporations accounted for about 54 percent of the value of GDP in 2000. Productivity: These productivity measures describe the relationship between real output and the labor time involved in its production. They show the changes from period to period in the amount of goods and services produced per hour. Although these measures relate output to hours at work of all persons engaged in a sector, they do not measure the specific contribution of labor, capital, or any other factor of production. Rather, they reflect the joint effects of many influences, including changes in technology; capital investment; level of output; utilization of capacity, energy, and materials; the organization of production; managerial skill; and the characteristics and effort of the work force. Labor Compensation: Estimates of labor compensation by major sector, required for measures of hourly compensation and unit labor costs, are based primarily on employee compensation data from the NIPA, prepared by the BEA. The compensation of employees in general government, nonprofit institutions and private households are subtracted from compensation of domestic employees to derive employee compensation for the business sector. The labor compensation of proprietors cannot be explicitly identified and must be estimated. This is done by assuming that proprietors have the same hourly compensation as employees in the same sector. The quarterly labor productivity and cost measures do not contain estimates of compensation for unpaid family workers. Unit Labor Costs: The measures of unit labor costs in this release describe the relationship between compensation per hour and productivity, or real output per hour, and can be used as an indicator of inflationary pressure on producers. Increases in hourly compensation increase unit labor costs; labor productivity increases offset compensation increases and lower unit labor costs. Presentation of the data: The quarterly data in this release are presented in three ways; as index number series where 1992=100, as percent changes from the corresponding quarter of the previous year, and as percent changes from the previous quarter presented at a compound annual rate. Annual data are presented both as index number series and percent changes from the previous year. The index numbers and rates of change reported in the productivity and costs news release are rounded to one decimal place. All percent changes in this release and on the BLS web site are calculated using index numbers to three decimal places. These index numbers are available at the BLS web site, http://www.bls.gov/data/home.htm, or by contacting the BLS Division of Major Sector Productivity. (Telephone 202-691-5606 or email DPRWEB@BLS.GOV) Information in this release will be made available to sensory-impaired individuals upon request. Voice phone: 202-691-5606; Federal Relay Service number: 1-800-877-8339.
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Last Modified Date: September 04, 2008