Productivity And Costs — 1997-05-07

The Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor today reported preliminary productivity data--as measured by output per hour of all persons--for the first quarter of 1997. The seasonally-adjusted annual rates of productivity change in the first quarter were: 2.1 percent in the business sector and 2.0 percent in the nonfarm business sector. In both sectors, first-quarter productivity gains were larger than those posted in the previous three quarters. 3.1 percent in manufacturing, 3.4 percent in durable goods manufacturing, and 3.5 percent in nondurable goods manufacturing. Output and hours in manufacturing, which includes about 18 percent of U.S. business-sector employment, tend to vary more from quarter to quarter than data for the more aggregate business and nonfarm business sectors. First-quarter measures are summarized in table A and appear in detail in tables 1 through 5.