Technical notes
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 75
percent of the value of GDP in 2011. Nonfarm business, which excludes
farming, accounted for about 74 percent of GDP in 2011.
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 49 percent of the value of GDP in 2011.
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: The measure includes accrued wages and salaries,
supplements, employer contributions to employee benefit plans, and taxes.
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 percent changes from the previous quarter presented at a
compound annual rate, as percent changes from the corresponding quarter of
the previous year, and as index number series where 2005=100. 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, 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.
Last Modified Date: September 05, 2012