2000 Multifactor Productivity Trends in Manufacturing — 2002-08-29

The Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor today reported multifactor productivity data--output per unit of combined inputs for the manufacturing sector and for durable goods, nondurable goods, and two-digit (SIC) manufacturing industries through the year 2000. 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. Multifactor productivity, therefore, differs from the labor productivity (output per hour) measures that are published quarterly by BLS since it requires information on capital services and other data that are not available on a quarterly basis. In 2000, multifactor productivity in all manufacturing changed at the following percentage rates: Multifactor productivity in manufacturing increased for the ninth consecutive year, but at the lowest rate since 1996. The 2000 annual changes are summarized in table A; further detail and historical measures are shown in tables 1 through 3.