February 07, 2008 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Productivity growth in 2007

Productivity, as measured by output per hour, increased 1.6 percent in the nonfarm business sector in 2007, reflecting increases of 2.3 percent in output and 0.7 percent in hours.

Annual percent change in nonfarm business productivity, 1998-2007
[Chart data—TXT]

Productivity grew by 1.0 percent from 2005 to 2006.

From 2000 to 2005, output per hour grew at an average annual rate of 3.0 percent in the nonfarm business sector. Between 1990 and 2000, productivity rose 2.0 percent per year.

These data are from the BLS Productivity and Costs program. Data are subject to revision. For more information, see the "Productivity and Costs, Preliminary Fourth Quarter and Annual Averages for 2007" (PDF) (HTML), news release USDL 08-0171.

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