2009 Multifactor Productivity Trends for Detailed Industries — 2011-09-23

Multifactor productivity - defined as output per unit of combined inputs - increased in only 12 of the 86 four-digit NAICS manufacturing industries in 2009, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. (See table 1.) This was down from 2008, when multifactor productivity increased in 36 of those 86 industries. Fewer manufacturing industries recorded multifactor productivity increases in 2009 than in any year since the beginning of the measures in 1987. Within the transportation sector in 2009, multifactor productivity declined 1.5 percent in air transportation and 8.6 percent in line-haul railroads. Multifactor productivity indexes relate the change in real output to the change in the combined inputs of labor, capital, and intermediate purchases consumed in producing that output.