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Handbook of Methods Office of Productivity and Technology Presentation

Office of Productivity and Technology: Presentation

The Office of Productivity and Technology (OPT) publishes estimates of productivity growth in the following news releases:

  • The Productivity and Costs release covers quarterly and annual estimates of growth in labor productivity and unit labor costs for the business and nonfarm business sectors, the nonfinancial corporate business sector, and the total, durable, and nondurable manufacturing sectors. Indexes of labor productivity, output, hours worked, and related cost data are available from the release. Quarterly data are published on an annualized basis. Releases are published twice per quarter, about 1 week after the release of the advance and second estimates of gross domestic product (GDP) by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

  • The Productivity and Costs by Industry: Selected Service-Providing Industries release covers annual estimates of the growth of labor productivity, unit labor costs, hours worked, and compensation in selected service-providing industries. These industries include those in the utilities, transportation and warehousing, information, finance and insurance, and accommodation and food services sectors.

  • The Productivity and Costs by Industry: Wholesale Trade and Retail Trade Industries release covers annual estimates of the growth of labor productivity, unit labor costs, hours worked, and compensation in wholesale trade and retail trade industries.

  • The Productivity and Costs by Industry: Manufacturing and Mining Industries release covers annual estimates of the growth of labor productivity, unit labor costs, hours worked, and compensation in detailed manufacturing and mining industries.

  • The Productivity by State release covers annual estimates of the growth of labor productivity, unit labor costs, hours worked, and compensation in 4 regions and the 50 states and the District of Columbia. 

  • The Total Factor Productivity (TFP) release covers annual estimates of the growth of TFP, labor productivity, capital productivity, output, and inputs for the private business and private nonfarm business sectors. Comprehensive tables can be downloaded from the productivity tables webpage. Included are annual indexes of total factor productivity, capital inputs, and related measures for the private business and private nonfarm business sectors.

  • The Total Factor Productivity for Major Industries release covers annual estimates of the growth of TFP, labor productivity, output, and inputs for 21 major industries.

  • The Total Factor Productivity for Detailed Industries release covers annual estimates of labor and TFP growth for detailed industries in manufacturing. 

Each of these releases provides additional supporting information. Data are available in XLSX tables on the productivity webpage. Historical news releases can also be accessed.

Revisions schedule for productivity data

Productivity and cost measures are regularly revised as more information becomes available and, more rarely, when methods or concepts change. The preliminary labor productivity and costs measures for major sectors are initially published within 40 days of the close of the reference period (the quarter or year to which the data refer).

  • A first revision that incorporates updates of source data published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and BEA is published about 30 days after the preliminary estimates.

  • A second revision is published approximately 60 days after the first revised estimates are published, as part of the preliminary release for the next quarter. Regular data updates from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System are incorporated. 

The technical notes of the Productivity and Costs release provide an 80-percent interval for the value of the second revised estimate relative to the preliminary estimate. A recent news release stated that the second revised estimate of labor productivity growth for the nonfarm business sector will differ from the preliminary estimate by between −1.0 and +1.3 percentage points approximately 80 percent of the time.

In addition to the two regularly scheduled revisions described above, the output data obtained from BEA are subject to annual revisions that revise data for the previous 5 years. Comprehensive revisions to the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) extend back 10 years. These revisions can include changes in the output concept (what is counted as output) as well as changes in source data and methods. The output data may be revised to the beginning of the series. OPT then incorporates these historical revisions into the November publication of major sector labor productivity and costs measures.

At the time of the NIPA annual update, BEA provides BLS with revised data on Legal Form of Organization (LFO) ratios and government enterprises employment. These source data are annual; thus, quarterly estimates are interpolated using a Denton procedure to ensure they average back to the annual values.

The BLS Current Employment Statistics (CES) program also revises its previous 2 months of data in each monthly Employment Situation news release. These revisions are mostly reflected in the preliminary estimate of quarterly labor productivity and are fully reflected in the first revised estimate. In addition, the CES program annually revises its historical data for the previous 5 years by benchmarking employment to universe counts. At that time, the CES program reestimates seasonal adjustment factors, which are then incorporated into the March Labor Productivity and Costs release. Revisions to CPS data from revised seasonal factors mirror those to the CES.

When the BEA GDP by Industry Accounts are historically updated, the updated accounts are incorporated into the next annual revisions for total factor productivity and state productivity; these revisions can go back as far as the initial year of the series. Initial estimates for detailed industry output are revised with the release of Census annual survey and Economic Census data. Preliminary and estimated annual compensation from the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) are revised to reflect the final published values in detailed industries in the service-providing, trade, and mining sectors. Compensation is revised with Census data in manufacturing industries.

Errata policy

As the Labor Productivity and Costs release is a Principal Federal Economic Indicator (PFEI), the errata policy is quite strict. Any significant error leading to more than a 0.1-percentage-point change from the published rate of growth of labor productivity, output, or hours will constitute a substantial revision at the nonfarm business level.

The discovery of any error in a published statistical product will begin a process to determine whether the error is substantial or not. Substantial errors are those that impact prominent or frequently cited data on productivity, unit labor costs, output, or hours, and that is visible at the published level of precision. If an error is determined to be substantial, a correction will be issued and the public notified as soon as possible. The goal is to implement corrections within 3 working days with changes to LABSTAT (the BLS central repository of data and database of record) made as soon as possible. All corrections are accompanied by an errata notice describing the data impacted, how they were impacted, the date corrections were made, and the corresponding BLS program. Unsubstantial corrections can be made at the next scheduled data release but corrections can be made sooner. If a provider of source data issues an erratum for an unsubstantial error, then the correction may be made sooner.

If the error is discovered within 2 weeks of the next release, language will be added to the next release to identify the error; however, a reissue of the previous release’s data may not occur at that time to avoid confusing data users. The program would, however, identify the error on the BLS website when the extent of the error can be evaluated. It is the BLS mission to provide accurate, relevant, and timely productivity measures to help inform policymakers and decision makers about the health and direction of the U.S. economy.

Last Modified Date: September 30, 2025