June 7, 2012 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)
First quarter 2012 nonfarm business sector productivity
Nonfarm business sector labor productivity decreased at a 0.9-percent annual rate during the first quarter of 2012. The decline in productivity reflects increases of 2.4 percent in output and 3.3 percent in hours worked.
[Chart data]
Unit labor costs in nonfarm businesses increased 1.3 percent in the first quarter of 2012, while hourly compensation increased 0.4 percent.
Manufacturing sector productivity rose 5.2 percent in the first quarter of 2012, as output grew 10.0 percent and hours worked increased 4.6 percent.
These data are from the Labor Productivity and Costs program, are seasonally adjusted, and are revised. To learn more, see "Productivity and Costs, First Quarter 2012, Revised" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL-12-1123. Labor productivity, or output per hour, is calculated by dividing an index of real output by an index of hours of all persons, including employees, proprietors, and unpaid family workers. Unit labor costs are the ratio of hourly compensation to labor productivity.
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