Revised nonfarm business sector labor productivity still up 3.0 percent during third quarter of 2017

Nonfarm business sector labor productivity increased 3.0 percent during the third quarter of 2017 — the same as the preliminary estimate. Output increased 4.1 percent and hours worked increased 1.1 percent. The productivity increase was the largest since the third quarter of 2014, when output per hour increased 4.4 percent.

In the third quarter of 2017, output and hours worked were both revised up by 0.3 percentage points. Unit labor costs were revised from a 0.5-percent increase to a 0.2-percent decline for the third quarter of 2017.

These data are from the Labor Productivity and Costs program and are seasonally adjusted. For more information, see "Labor Productivity and Costs — Third Quarter 2017, Revised" (HTML) (PDF). Measures released in the revised report are based on more recent source data than were available for the preliminary report. Labor productivity is calculated by dividing inflation-adjusted output by hours worked for all employees, business owners, and unpaid family workers. Unit labor costs are the ratio of hourly compensation to labor productivity. Increases in hourly compensation increase unit labor costs, and increases in output per hour reduce unit labor costs. More labor productivity charts can be found here.