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A look at publishing data for National Read a Book Day
September 06, 2023
Reading for personal interest is a vital aspect of leisure in the United States. On an average day in 2022, 16.7 percent of people age 15 and older engaged in this activity and did so for an average of around 90 minutes. On National Read a Book Day, let’s take a look at some data for the book publishing industry. These publishers provide design, editing, and marketing services for books that land on the physical and virtual shelves of sellers. This includes books published in print, electronic, or audio form.
Productivity in the book publishing industry was up 21.2 percent in 2021 due to higher output and fewer hours worked.
Output, hours worked, and productivity for book publishers
Annual percent change in output, hours worked, and productivity for book publishers
Year
Output
Hours worked
Productivity
2012
-6.3
-3.1
-3.3
2013
-1.9
-8.4
7.1
2014
0.2
-0.6
0.8
2015
3.0
6.1
-2.9
2016
-1.9
-4.4
2.6
2017
-1.0
-3.9
3.0
2018
-8.3
-4.7
-3.8
2019
-5.9
-7.9
2.2
2020
-7.0
-3.3
-3.8
2021
10.6
-8.8
21.2
Annual indexes for output, hours worked, and productivity for book publishers
Year
Output
Hours
Productivity
2012
100.000
100.000
100.000
2013
98.143
91.623
107.117
2014
98.334
91.092
107.950
2015
101.322
96.653
104.830
2016
99.388
92.427
107.530
2017
98.429
88.866
110.761
2018
90.233
84.699
106.534
2019
84.913
77.975
108.898
2020
78.969
75.369
104.777
2021
87.310
68.746
127.004
Book publishing was not immune to the effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic. However, despite the impact of the pandemic on the book publishing industry in the form of publication delays, the shutdown of brick-and-mortar bookstores, and cancelled book tours, output rose by 10.6 percent in 2021. This was the first increase since 2015 when output grew by 3.0 percent.
Hours worked in the book publishing industry continued their years-long decline because of workforce contractions. Hours worked declined 3.3 percent in 2020 and were down 8.8 percent in 2021. Data for 2022 are available for hours worked and following 6 consecutive years of decline, hours worked grew 5.6 percent in 2022.
These data are from the Productivity program and are subject to revision. Labor productivity, or output per hour, is calculated by dividing an index of real output by an index of hours worked for all persons, including employees, proprietors, and unpaid family workers.
United States Department of Labor
