1998 Multifactor Productivity Trends — 2000-09-21

The Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor today reported multifactor productivity data--output per unit of combined labor and capital inputs--for 1998. Multifactor productivity differs from the labor productivity (output per hour) measures that are published quarterly by BLS. Multifactor productivity, unlike labor productivity, requires information on capital services and other data that are not available on a quarterly basis. Multifactor productivity is designed to measure the joint influences on economic growth of technological change, efficiency improvements, returns to scale, reallocation of resources, and other factors. In the most recent year available, multifactor productivity in the private business and private nonfarm business sectors changed at the following percentage rates: Multifactor productivity increased for the seventh consecutive year in both the private business and private nonfarm business sectors. The 1998 annual changes are summarized in table A; further detail and historical measures are shown in tables 1 through 8.