2008 Second Quarter (Revised) Productivity and Costs — 2008-09-04

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 second quarter of 2008. The seasonally adjusted annual rates of productivity change in the second quarter were: 4.3 percent in the business sector and 4.3 percent in the nonfarm business sector. In both sectors, the second-quarter productivity gains were larger than the preliminary estimates reported on August 8. -2.2 percent in manufacturing, -4.5 percent in durable goods manufacturing, and 0.2 percent in nondurable goods manufacturing. Manufacturing productivity decreased faster in the second quarter of 2008 than was reported on August 8, reflecting downward revisions to output per hour in both durable and nondurable manufacturing. Output and hours in manufacturing, which includes about 12 percent of U.S. business-sector employment, tend to vary more from quarter to quarter than data for the aggregate business and nonfarm business sectors.