Labor Productivity and Costs

Productivity and Costs

May 03, 2012
Productivity declined 0.5 percent in the nonfarm business sector in the first quarter 2012; unit labor costs rose 2.0 percent (seasonally adjusted annual rates). In manufacturing, productivity grew 5.9 percent and unit labor costs fell 4.2 percent. More...
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Productivity and Costs by Industry: Manufacturing Industries, 2010

March 29, 2012
Labor productivity rose in 83 percent of the detailed manufacturing industries studied in 2010, up from 30 percent of the industries in 2009 and a higher percentage than in any year since 2005. More...
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Productivity and Costs by Industry: Wholesale Trade, Retail Trade, and Food Services and Drinking Places Industries, 2010

August 30, 2011
Labor productivity (output per hour) rose in wholesale trade, retail trade, and food services and drinking places in 2010, and in 40 of the 50 detailed industries. Unit labor costs fell in the trade sectors and grew in food services and drinking places. More...
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Productivity and Costs by Industry: Selected Service-Providing and Mining Industries, 2009

May 26, 2011
Labor productivity rose in 44 percent of the detailed service-providing and mining industries studied in 2009, down from 56 percent in 2008 and 65 percent in 2007. Output and hours declined at double-digit rates in over one quarter of the industries studied. More...
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Archived

• Archived Productivity and Costs Releases (1993 forward)
• Archived Productivity and Costs by Industry

LPC Databases

Database Name	Special Notice	Top Picks	One Screen	Multi- Screen	Tables	Text Files
Major Sector Productivity and Costs
Industry Productivity and Costs

More Tools

• Series Report--Already know the series identifier for the statistic you want? Use this shortcut to retrieve your data.
• Text files (FTP)--For those who want it all. Download a flat file of the entire database or large subset of the database.
• Major Sector Productivity and Costs
• Industry Productivity and Costs
• Superseded historical SIC measures for manufacturing, durable manufacturing, and nondurable manufacturing sectors, 1949-2003.

Tables

Major Sector Data

• UPDATED Productivity Growth by Major Sector, 1947-2010. Bar Chart
• Information Supporting Major Sector Productivity and Costs Hours.
  • NEW Hours of Wage and Salary Workers on Nonfarm Payrolls by Sector, seasonally adjusted
  • Hours-Worked to Hours-Paid Ratios
  • Supervisory worker to Nonsupervisory Worker Average Weekly Hours Ratios

Industry Data

• UPDATED Labor Productivity and Costs
• Employment and Hours of All Persons

Technical Notes

• "Technical Information About the Major Sector Productivity and Costs Methods" (HTML) (PDF 58 KB) This document describes the labor productivity measures that BLS publishes for the major sectors of the U.S. economy, as well as the methodology used to calculate these measures. February 2008.
• "Industry Employment and Hours" (HTML) , March 29, 2010.
• Note on the Differences Between the /Quarterly Hourly Compensation Measures and the Employment Cost Index (ECI), January 2007.
• Construction of Employment and Hours for Self-employed and other Nonfarm workers and for all Farm workers, using Current Population Survey data for primary and secondary jobs." (PDF), March 2006.
• "Construction of Average Weekly Hours for Supervisory and Nonproduction Wage and Salary Workers in Detailed Industries" (PDF), August 2005.
• "Construction of average weekly hours for supervisory and nonproduction wage and salary workers in private nonfarm establishments" (PDF), October 2004.
• "Hours at work ratios derived from the Employment Cost Index, 2001-2003" (PDF), Brief description of the Bureau of Labor Statistics new ratios of hours at work to hours paid and reasons for the discontinuation of the Hours at Work Survey.

Publications

• "The compensation-productivity gap: a visual essay,"(PDF 406K) by Susan Fleck, John Glaser and Shawn Sprague, Monthly Labor Review, January 2011, pp. 57-69
• "Bringing work home: implications for BLS productivity measures," (PDF), by Lucy P. Eldridge and Sabrina Wulff Pabilonia, Monthly Labor Review, December 2010, pp. 18-35.
• "Productivity trends in business cycles: a visual essay,"(PDF 221K) by Michael Chernousov, Susan E. Fleck, and John Glaser, Monthly Labor Review, June 2009, pp. 50-63.
• "Effects of imported intermediate inputs on productivity,"(PDF), by Lucy P. Eldridge and Michael J. Harper, Monthly Labor Review, June 2010, pp. 3-15.
• "New Service Industry Productivity Measures," (PDF 31K) Report 993, February 2006
• "Industry productivity trends under the North American Industry Classification system" (PDF 87K), by Matthew Russell, Paul Takac, and Lisa Usher, Monthly Labor Review, November 2004, pp.31-42.
• "New Service Industry Productivity Measures," (PDF 30K) Report 979, September 2004.
• "Alternative measures of supervisory employee hours and productivity growth" (PDF 273K), by Lucy P. Eldridge, Marilyn E. Manser, and Phyllis Flohr Otto, Monthly Labor Review, April 2004.
• "The Effect of Outsourcing and Offshoring on BLS Productivity Measures" (PDF 32K), March 26, 2004.
• "New Transportation and Service Productivity Measures", (PDF 38K) Report 964, January 2003.
• "Unit Labor Costs for Selected Industries, 1987-97," (PDF 86K) Report 939, November 1999.
• "BLS completes major expansion of industry productivity series, (PDF 300K) by John Duke and Lisa Usher, Monthly Labor Review, September 1998, pp. 35-51.
• "The BLS Productivity Measurement Program," (PDF 95K), by Edwin R. Dean and Michael J. Harper, Discussion Paper presented at the Conference on Research in Income and Wealth: New Directions in Productivity Research, March 20-21, 1998.
• "Improvements to the Quarterly Productivity Measures" (PDF 400K), by Edwin R. Dean, Michael J. Harper, and Phyllis Flohr Otto, Monthly Labor Review, October 1995.
• Archive of MLR Articles on Productivity and Technology.

• "Productivity Measures: Business Sector and Major Subsectors", Chapter 10 of the BLS Handbook of Methods, BLS Bulletin 2490, April 1997, pp. 89-102. See Technical Notes on Major Sector Productivity and Multifactor Productivity for updated methodology.
• BLS Handbook of Methods, Chapter 11, Industry Productivity Measures (HTML) (PDF 196K).

Special Notice

• Conversion to NAICS

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How is productivity defined?
2. Why is productivity measurement important?
3. How is productivity measured by BLS?
4. What is the most commonly used productivity measure?
5. What are "unit labor costs"?
6. Why can't I find a productivity measure for the total economy?
7. How are labor hours calculated?
8. What is included in compensation?
9. How are changes in output measured for specific industries?

All LPC FAQs »

Other BLS Programs

• Multifactor Productivity--annual indexes for industries and major sectors of the economy that relate output to labor, capital, and--in some cases--other inputs
• International Labor Comparisons--comparative information by country on productivity and unit labor costs; compensation; labor force, employment, and unemployment; and consumer prices.
• International Technical Cooperation --conducts training in labor statistics for international participants and coordinates international requests for BLS services including technical experts and short-term visits to BLS.
• Government Productivity Archive
• Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National)--monthly national data by detailed industry on employment, hours, and earnings of workers on the payrolls of nonfarm establishments.
• Producer Price Indexes--monthly data on changes in the selling prices received by domestic producers of goods and services.

Other Useful Links

• Bureau of the Census
• Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)