Productivity in first quarter 2009

May 08, 2009

Productivity—as measured by output per hour of all persons—increased 0.8 percent in the nonfarm business sector in the first quarter of 2009, as output declined 8.2 percent and hours of all persons dropped 9.0 percent (seasonally adjusted annual rates).

Growth in output per hour of all persons, nonfarm business, seasonally adjusted, 2007 I - 2009 I (percent change from previous quarter at annual rate)
[Chart data—TXT]

The decrease in hours, 9.0 percent, was the largest since the first quarter of 1975, when hours fell 12.0 percent.

Over the last four quarters, productivity in the nonfarm business sector grew 1.8 percent. This was lower than the 2.5 percent average rate of growth from 2000 to 2007.

These data are from the BLS Productivity and Costs program. Data are subject to revision. For more information, see "Productivity and Costs, First Quarter 2009, Preliminary" (PDF) (HTML), news release USDL 09-0481.

SUGGESTED CITATION

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Editor's Desk, Productivity in first quarter 2009 on the Internet at http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2009/may/wk1/art05.htm (visited May 24, 2013).

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