An official website of the United States government
Articles analyzing changes in output per hours worked—a measure of economic performance and efficiency—in broad sectors of the U.S. economy and detailed industries, over business cycles and longer-term periods.
Articles analyzing changes in output per combined input of labor and capital—a measure of economic performance and efficiency—in broad sectors of the U.S. economy and detailed industries, over business cycles and longer-term periods.
Articles analyzing the gap between labor compensation growth and labor productivity growth and the related labor share measure.
Articles detailing the BLS methodology for the estimation of productivity and related measures and the history of the BLS productivity program.
The Dispersion Statistics on Productivity homepage details the BLS research and data on the phenomenon of productivity dispersion, which is pervasive and exhibits substantial variation across countries, industries, and time.
The Retail Transformation Through Experimental Measures homepage introduces three experimental measures for retail trade industries in response to the recommendations of the 2021 report on A Satellite Account to Measure the Retail Transformation from the Committee on National Statistics (CNStat). These new measures include gross margin productivity, monthly output, and an expanded retail sector.
The Experimental Labor Composition for Detailed Industries homepage introduces experimental measures of labor composition at the detailed industry level. By accounting for the varying degrees of skill in the workforce, these experimental measures incorporate the demographic characteristics of workers and their wages into estimates of labor input and total factor productivity.
Two of the most important statistical tools for analysis of macroeconomics and growth are the national accounts (encompassing gross domestic product, or GDP) and the total factor productivity (TFP) statistics, which measure output per unit of combined inputs. Although they share a common accounting framework, in the United States these statistics are compiled by separate agencies—the national accounts by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and the productivity statistics by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). This project focuses on integrating the national accounts.
The Division of Productivity Research and Program Development (DPRPD) is part of the Productivity Program at BLS and is tasked with strengthening and improving Bureau productivity measures and on understanding the sources and effects of productivity and technical change.
View previous research that is no longer being updated by the Productivity program, including state labor productivity, government labor productivity, and international comparisons.