Multifactor productivity in nonfarm business, 2007

In the private nonfarm business sector, multifactor productivity—output per combined units of labor and capital inputs—rose 0.2 percent in 2007, the slowest rate of growth since 1995.

[Chart data—TXT]

Labor input in 2007 grew less than half of the previous year, 1.2 percent, compared to 2.6 percent recorded in 2006. Capital services grew 2.9 percent, the same as in 2006.

Within capital services, equipment was the fastest growing component. The increase in equipment in 2007 was largely due to capital services of information processing equipment and software, which rose by 7.4 percent. As in previous years, the fastest growth in equipment was in computers and related equipment, which grew 17.3 percent.

Multifactor productivity is designed to measure the joint influences of economic growth on technological change, efficiency improvements, returns to scale, reallocation of resources, and other factors, allowing for the effects of capital and labor.

These data are from the Multifactor Productivity program. Productivity data are subject to revision. To learn more, see "Multifactor Productivity Trends, 2007" (PDF) (HTML), news release USDL 09-0302.