August 12, 2002 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)
Productivity up in second quarter
Nonfarm business sector productivity—as measured by output per hour—increased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.1 percent in the second quarter of 2002. Output edged up 0.5 percent and hours declined 0.7 percent.
![Growth in output per hour of all persons, nonfarm business, seasonally adjusted, 2000 III-2002 II (percent change from previous quarter at annual rate)](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20120925081112im_/http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/images/2002/aug/wk2/art01.gif)
[Chart data—TXT]
In the first quarter of 2002, productivity in the nonfarm business sector
grew at annual rate of 8.6 percent, with output increasing 6.2 percent and
hours decreasing 2.2 percent. The first quarter’s increase in output per
hour was the largest in this sector since the second quarter of 1983, when
it increased 9.9 percent.
Hourly compensation in the nonfarm business sector increased 3.6 percent
in both the first and second quarters of 2002. Real hourly compensation,
which takes into account changes in consumer prices, increased at an
annual rate of 0.2 percent in the second quarter of 2002, following an
increase of 2.2 percent in the first quarter.
These data are a product of the BLS Productivity and Costs program. Data are subject to revision. Additional information is available in
"Productivity and Costs, Second Quarter
2002" (PDF) (TXT),
news release USDL 02-469.
Of interest
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In this Spotlight, we take a look at the Hispanic labor force—including labor force participation, employment and unemployment, educational attainment, geographic location, country of birth, earnings, consumer expenditures, time use, workplace injuries, and employment projections.
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