2010 Multifactor Productivity Trends in Manufacturing — 2012-06-26

Manufacturing sector multifactor productivity increased at an annual rate of 7.5 percent in 2010, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This was the largest increase recorded in the series, which began in 1987. (See chart 1, table A.) The multifactor productivity gain in 2010 reflected a 6.4 percent increase in output and a 1.1 percent decrease in combined inputs. Multifactor productivity measures the change in output per unit of combined inputs. Multifactor productivity in manufacturing is designed to measure the joint influences on economic growth of technological change, efficiency improvements, returns to scale, reallocation of resources, and other factors, allowing for the effects of capital, labor and intermediate inputs (energy, materials, purchased business services). Multifactor productivity measures differ from labor productivity (output per hour worked) measures that are published quarterly by BLS because multifactor productivity measures include information on capital services and intermediate inputs.