TECHNICAL NOTES
Labor Hours
Hours worked data for the labor productivity and cost measures include hours worked for all
persons working in the sector—wage and salary workers, the self-employed and unpaid family
workers. The primary source of hours and employment data is the BLS Current Employment
Statistics (CES) program, which provides monthly survey data on the number of jobs held by and
hours paid to wage and salary workers in nonfarm establishments, counting a person who is
employed by two or more establishments at each place of employment. As of the February 3,
2023 Employment Situation release, the CES program has updated the national nonfarm payroll
series to the 2022 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). The BLS Major
Sector Productivity program will be remaining on a NAICS 2017 basis for the time being by
converting NAICS 2022 data from CES back to a NAICS 2017 basis using ratios published on
the CES website and based on the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW). Hours
of paid time off are removed from hours paid using data from the National Compensation Survey
(NCS) for 1996 forward and data from the BLS Hours at Work survey, conducted for this
purpose, prior to 1990. Between 1990 and 1995, hours of paid time off are removed using a
combination of NCS and Hours at Work survey data. Off-the-clock hours are added, yielding
hours worked, using data from the Current Population Survey (CPS).
Data from the CPS are used to estimate hours worked for farm labor, nonfarm proprietors, and
nonfarm unpaid family workers. Using CPS information on employment and hours worked at
primary jobs and all other jobs, separately, the BLS productivity measures assign all hours
worked to the appropriate industrial sector. Hours for government enterprises are derived from
the CPS, the CES, and the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) prepared by the
Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) of the Department of Commerce.
Detailed hours data are presented in the table “Hours Worked in Total U.S. Economy and
Subsectors” on the BLS website (www.bls.gov/productivity/tables/total-economy-hours-
employment.xlsx).
Output
Business sector output is a chain-type, current-weighted index constructed after excluding from
gross domestic product (GDP) the following outputs: general government, nonprofit institutions,
and households (including owner-occupied housing). Corresponding exclusions also are made in
labor hours worked. Businesses accounted for about 77 percent of the value of nominal GDP in
2024. Nonfarm businesses, which exclude farming, accounted for about 76 percent of nominal
GDP in 2024.
Annual indexes for manufacturing and its durable and nondurable goods components are
constructed by deflating current-dollar industry value of production data from the U.S. Bureau of
the Census with deflators from the BLS. These deflators are based on data from the BLS
Producer Price Index program and other sources. The industry shipments are aggregated using
annual weights, and intrasectoral transactions are removed. Quarterly manufacturing output
measures are based on the indexes of industrial production prepared monthly by the Board of
Governors of the Federal Reserve System, adjusted to be consistent with annual indexes of
manufacturing sector output prepared by BLS.
Nonfinancial corporate output is a chain-type, current-weighted index calculated on the basis of
the costs incurred and the incomes earned from production. The output measure excludes the
following outputs from GDP: general government; nonprofit institutions; households;
unincorporated business; and those corporations classified as offices of bank holding companies,
offices of other holding companies, or offices in the finance and insurance sector. Nonfinancial
corporations accounted for about 51 percent of the value of nominal GDP in 2024.
Labor Productivity
The measure describes the relationship between real output and the labor time involved in its
production. Measures of labor productivity growth show the changes from period to period in the
amount of goods and services produced per hour worked. They reflect the joint effects of many
influences, including changes in technology; capital investment; level of output; utilization of
capacity, energy, and materials; the organization of production; managerial skill; and the
characteristics and effort of the work force.
Labor Compensation
The measure includes accrued wages and salaries, supplements, employer contributions to
employee benefit plans, and taxes. Estimates of labor compensation by major sector, required for
measures of hourly compensation and unit labor costs, are based primarily on employee
compensation data from the NIPA, prepared by the BEA. The compensation of employees in
general government, nonprofit institutions and households are subtracted from compensation of
employees in domestic industries to derive employee compensation for the business sector. The
labor compensation of proprietors cannot be explicitly identified and must be estimated. This is
done by assuming that proprietors have the same hourly compensation as employees in the same
sector. The quarterly labor productivity and cost measures do not contain estimates of
compensation for unpaid family workers.
Unit Labor Costs
These measures describe the relationship between compensation per hour and labor productivity,
or real output per hour, and can be used as an indicator of inflationary pressure on producers.
Increases in hourly compensation increase unit labor costs; labor productivity increases offset
compensation increases and lower unit labor costs.
Presentation of the data
The quarterly data in this release are presented in three ways: as percent changes from the
previous quarter presented at a compound annual rate, as percent changes from the
corresponding quarter of the previous year, and as index number series where 2017=100. Annual
data are presented both as index number series and percent changes from the previous year.
The index numbers and rates of change reported in the productivity and costs news release are
rounded to one decimal place. All percent changes in this release and on the BLS web site are
calculated using index numbers to three decimal places. A complete historical series of these
index numbers are available at the BLS productivity web site,
https://www.bls.gov/productivity/data.htm, or by contacting the BLS Division of Major Sector
Productivity (Telephone 202-691-5606 or email productivity@bls.gov).
For a more detailed explanation of methods see the Handbook of Methods at
www.bls.gov/opub/hom/msp/home.htm.
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United States Department of Labor
