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Productivity
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Wholesale and Retail Trade Industries Labor Productivity
On May 28, 2026, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) updated measures for detailed industries in Productivity and Costs by Industry: Wholesale Trade and Retail Trade Industries - 2025. In 2025, the wholesale trade sector accounted for 4.7 percent of nonfarm business sector employment (6.2 million jobs). The retail trade sector accounted for 12.2 percent of nonfarm business sector employment (16.1 million jobs). This page presents data highlights from the news release.
Trends in Select Wholesale and Retail Trade Industries
The charts below feature trends of productivity and related series in selected time periods for four retail trade industries (electronic and mail-order houses, automobile dealers, grocery stores, and general merchandise stores, including warehouse clubs and supercenters) and one wholesale trade industry (grocery and related products). While both wholesalers and retailers sell products, the difference is their customers. Wholesalers sell products to retailers and other establishments while retailers sell directly to consumers.
Productivity growth was highest in the 1987 to 2007 period for four of the five industries. Grocery stores saw the highest gain in productivity from 2007 to 2019. From 2019 to 2025, unit labor costs increased in four of the five industries, but declined in electronic shopping and mail-order houses due to higher productivity growth. All five industries recorded the highest growth in hourly compensation from 2019 to 2025 compared to earlier periods. Take a closer look below and explore additional measures and industries with our interactive charts.
- Electronic shopping & mail-order houses
- Automobile dealers
- Grocery & related products
- Grocery stores
- General merchandise stores
BLS creates productivity measures for the nonfarm business sector, U.S. states, and individual industries, such as those in the manufacturing and mining sectors. Labor productivity describes the relationship between output and the hours worked involved in its production. Unit labor costs (ULC) represent the cost of labor required to produce one unit of output. ULC also describes the relationship between compensation per hour worked (hourly compensation) and output per hour (labor productivity).
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Articles:
- Sales versus Margins: Alternative Measures of Output and Productivity for Retail Trade
- Sectoral versus Gross Margin: Alternative Measures of Output and Labor Productivity for Retail Industries
- Higher-frequency Output: Introducing the 12-Month Trailing Average
- Expanded Retail Sector
- Scanning Grocery Store Productivity Statistics
- Checking Out Productivity in Grocery Stores
Data tools:
- Industry Productivity Viewer
- Interactive Charts
- Labor Productivity by Detailed Industries (xlsx)
- Industries at a Glance: Wholesale Trade
- Industries at a Glance: Retail Trade
Productivity Education:
Notes
The annual percent change is the change in a series from one year to the next as a percent of the series-value in the previous year. Over a period of more than one year, the annual percent change is the compound annual growth rate in an index series, or an annualized average growth rate. Because the change of an index series varies from year to year, the annual percent change for a long time period reflects the constant rate that can be applied to each year in a period, from the start to the end, that would give the same total result. It is calculated as (Ending Value/Starting Value)^(1/Number of Years)–1.
Last Modified Date: June 18, 2026