Productivity and Costs

February 07, 2013
Productivity decreased 2.0 percent in the nonfarm business sector in the fourth quarter of 2012; unit labor costs increased 4.5 percent (seasonally adjusted annual rates). In manufacturing, productivity increased 0.5 percent and unit labor costs increased 0.4 percent. More...
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Productivity and Costs by Industry: Wholesale Trade, Retail Trade, and Food Services and Drinking Places Industries, 2011

August 30, 2012
Labor productivity (output per hour) grew in wholesale trade and retail trade, and was unchanged in food services and drinking places in 2011. Unit labor costs rose in wholesale trade and food services and drinking places, but fell in retail trade. More...
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Productivity and Costs by Industry: Selected Service-Providing and Mining Industries, 2010

May 31, 2012
Labor productivity rose in 69 percent of the detailed service-providing and mining industries studied in 2010, up from 42 percent of the industries in 2009. More industries recorded productivity increases in 2010 than in any year since 2003. More...
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Productivity and Costs by Industry: Manufacturing Industries, 2010

March 29, 2012
Labor productivity rose in 83 percent of the detailed manufacturing industries studied in 2010, up from 30 percent of the industries in 2009 and a higher percentage than in any year since 2005. More...
(HTML) (PDF)

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• Schedule of Upcoming Releases

Archived

• Archived Productivity and Costs Releases (1993 forward)
• Archived Productivity and Costs by Industry

LPC Databases

Database Name	Special Notice	Top Picks	One Screen	Multi- Screen	Tables	Text Files
Major Sector Productivity and Costs
Industry Productivity and Costs

Download the complete Major Sector Productivity and Costs dataset

More Tools

• Series Report--Already know the series identifier for the statistic you want? Use this shortcut to retrieve your data.
• Text files (FTP)--For those who want it all. Download a flat file of the entire database or large subset of the database.
• Major Sector Productivity and Costs
• Industry Productivity and Costs
• Superseded historical SIC measures for manufacturing, durable manufacturing, and nondurable manufacturing sectors, 1949-2003.

Tables

Major Sector Data

• Updated charts and data associated with the paper “The compensation-productivity gap: a visual essay,” by Susan Fleck, John Glaser, and Shawn Sprague
• UPDATED Productivity Growth by Major Sector, 1947-2012. Bar Chart
• Information Supporting Major Sector Productivity and Costs Hours
  • Hours of Wage and Salary Workers on Nonfarm Payrolls by Sector, seasonally adjusted
  • Hours-Worked to Hours-Paid Ratios
  • Supervisory worker to Nonsupervisory Worker Average Weekly Hours Ratios

Industry Data

• REVISED Labor Productivity and Costs
• Employment and Hours of All Persons

Technical Notes

• "Technical Information About the Major Sector Productivity and Costs Methods" (HTML) (PDF 58 KB) This document describes the labor productivity measures that BLS publishes for the major sectors of the U.S. economy, as well as the methodology used to calculate these measures. February 2008.
• "Industry Employment and Hours" (HTML) , March 29, 2010.
• Note on the Differences Between the /Quarterly Hourly Compensation Measures and the Employment Cost Index (ECI), January 2007.
• Construction of Employment and Hours for Self-employed and other Nonfarm workers and for all Farm workers, using Current Population Survey data for primary and secondary jobs." (PDF), March 2006.
• "Construction of Average Weekly Hours for Supervisory and Nonproduction Wage and Salary Workers in Detailed Industries" (PDF), August 2005.
• "Construction of average weekly hours for supervisory and nonproduction wage and salary workers in private nonfarm establishments" (PDF), October 2004.
• "Hours at work ratios derived from the Employment Cost Index, 2001-2003" (PDF), Brief description of the Bureau of Labor Statistics new ratios of hours at work to hours paid and reasons for the discontinuation of the Hours at Work Survey.

Publications

• NEW "Improved measures of commercial banking output and productivity," (PDF 769K) by Sara E. Royster, Monthly Labor Review, July 2012, pp. 3-17.
• Updated charts and data associated with the paper “The compensation-productivity gap: a visual essay,” by Susan Fleck, John Glaser, and Shawn Sprague.
• "The compensation-productivity gap: a visual essay,"(PDF 406K) by Susan Fleck, John Glaser and Shawn Sprague, Monthly Labor Review, January 2011, pp. 57-69.
• "Bringing work home: implications for BLS productivity measures," (PDF), by Lucy P. Eldridge and Sabrina Wulff Pabilonia, Monthly Labor Review, December 2010, pp. 18-35.
• "Effects of imported intermediate inputs on productivity,"(PDF), by Lucy P. Eldridge and Michael J. Harper, Monthly Labor Review, June 2010, pp. 3-15.
• "Productivity trends in business cycles: a visual essay,"(PDF 221K) by Michael Chernousov, Susan E. Fleck, and John Glaser, Monthly Labor Review, June 2009, pp. 50-63.
• "Labor productivity since 2000, by sector and industry,"(PDF 669K) by Corey Holman, Bobbie Joyeux, and Christopher Kask, Monthly Labor Review, February 2008, pp. 64-82.
• "New Service Industry Productivity Measures," (PDF 31K) Report 993, February 2006.
• "Industry productivity trends under the North American Industry Classification system" (PDF 87K), by Matthew Russell, Paul Takac, and Lisa Usher, Monthly Labor Review, November 2004, pp.31-42.
• "New Service Industry Productivity Measures," (PDF 30K) Report 979, September 2004.
• "Alternative measures of supervisory employee hours and productivity growth" (PDF 273K), by Lucy P. Eldridge, Marilyn E. Manser, and Phyllis Flohr Otto, Monthly Labor Review, April 2004.
• "New Transportation and Service Productivity Measures", (PDF 38K) Report 964, January 2003.
• "Unit Labor Costs for Selected Industries, 1987-97," (PDF 86K) Report 939, November 1999.
• "BLS completes major expansion of industry productivity series, (PDF 300K) by John Duke and Lisa Usher, Monthly Labor Review, September 1998, pp. 35-51.
• "The BLS Productivity Measurement Program," (PDF 95K), by Edwin R. Dean and Michael J. Harper, Discussion Paper presented at the Conference on Research in Income and Wealth: New Directions in Productivity Research, March 20-21, 1998.
• "Improvements to the Quarterly Productivity Measures" (PDF 400K), by Edwin R. Dean, Michael J. Harper, and Phyllis Flohr Otto, Monthly Labor Review, October 1995.
• Archive of MLR Articles on Productivity and Technology.

• "Productivity Measures: Business Sector and Major Subsectors", Chapter 10 of the BLS Handbook of Methods, BLS Bulletin 2490, April 1997, pp. 89-102. See Technical Notes on Major Sector Productivity and Multifactor Productivity for updated methodology.
• BLS Handbook of Methods, Chapter 11, Industry Productivity Measures (HTML) (PDF 196K).

Special Notices

• Labor productivity and costs data for the nonfinancial corporate sector were corrected December 17, 2012. For more information, see http://www.bls.gov/lpc/lpc_nonfinancial_corporate_correction.htm.
• With the update of multifactor productivity measures for detailed industries on Sept. 26, 2012, measures of output, output per hour, output per worker, value of production, implicit price deflator, and unit labor costs for 2008-2010 were revised for NAICS 3346 and NAICS 334. The revisions supersede the data for these industries published on March 29, 2012 in the news release on Productivity and Costs by Industry: Manufacturing Industries, 2010. The revised measures are available from the online data query tool and in the industry labor productivity tables on this website.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How is productivity defined?
2. Why is productivity measurement important?
3. How is productivity measured by BLS?
4. What is the most commonly used productivity measure?
5. What are "unit labor costs"?
6. Does outsourcing and offshoring of intermediate production inflate the productivity measures?
7. Why can't I find a productivity measure for the total economy?
8. How are labor hours calculated?
9. What is included in compensation?
10. How are changes in output measured for specific industries?

All LPC FAQs »

Major Sector Productivity and Cost Data (Quarterly and Annual)
News Release
	Major Sector Productivity staff	(202) 691-5606	Staff
Labor Productivity and Related Data
	Analysis and methodology
	John Glaser	(202) 691-5607	Glaser.John@bls.gov
	Data
	Shawn Sprague	(202) 691-5612	Sprague.Shawn@bls.gov
Employment and Hours
	Nonfarm employees
	Shawn Sprague	(202) 691-5612	Sprague.Shawn@bls.gov
	Other nonfarm and farm
	John Glaser	(202) 691-5607	Glaser.John@bls.gov
	Hours-At-Work Ratios
	Shawn Sprague	(202) 691-5612	Sprague.Shawn@bls.gov
Industry Productivity and Cost Data (Annual)
Labor Productivity and Related Data
	Industry Productivity Studies staff	(202) 691-5618	Staff
Methodology
	Lisa Usher	(202) 691-5641	Usher.Lisa@bls.gov
	Mark Dumas	(202) 691-5635	Dumas.Mark@bls.gov
	Chris Kask	(202) 691-5647	Kask.Chris@bls.gov
	Victor Torres	(202) 691-5626	Torres.Victor@bls.gov

Other BLS Programs

• Multifactor Productivity--annual indexes for industries and major sectors of the economy that relate output to labor, capital, and--in some cases--other inputs
• International Labor Comparisons--comparative information by country on productivity and unit labor costs; compensation; labor force, employment, and unemployment; and consumer prices.
• International Technical Cooperation --conducts training in labor statistics for international participants and coordinates international requests for BLS services including technical experts and short-term visits to BLS.
• Government Productivity Archive
• Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National)--monthly national data by detailed industry on employment, hours, and earnings of workers on the payrolls of nonfarm establishments.
• Producer Price Indexes--monthly data on changes in the selling prices received by domestic producers of goods and services.

Other Useful Links

• Bureau of the Census
• Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)