Productivity And Costs — 1996-06-18

The Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor today reported revised productivity data--as measured by output per hour of all persons--for the first quarter of 1996. The revised seasonally-adjusted annual rates of productivity change in the first quarter were: 2.3 percent in the business sector, and 2.1 percent in the nonfarm business sector. In both sectors, the first-quarter productivity gains were the largest since the fourth quarter of 1993. 5.5 percent in manufacturing, 8.1 percent in durable goods manufacturing, and 2.4 percent in nondurable goods manufacturing. Manufacturing productivity growth in the first quarter was higher than in the fourth quarter of 1995, reflecting both a larger increase in output and a bigger drop in the hours of all persons in the sector. Output and hours in manufacturing, which includes about 18 percent of U.S. business-sector employment, tend to vary more from quarter to quarter than data for the more aggregate business and nonfarm business sectors.