January 4, 2000 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)
Variation in unit labor costs by industry
Changes in unit labor costs varied markedly in
the transportation, communications, and utilities sector from 1987 to
1997. The average annual percent change in unit labor costs in the nine
measured industries ranged from –3.0 percent in railroad transportation
to 5.8 percent in cable and other pay TV services.
[Chart data—TXT]
Unit labor costs in overall nonfarm business increased at a rate of 2.0
percent per year from 1987-97. Besides railroad transportation, four other
industries in the transportation, communications, and utilities sector
with changes in costs below the overall average were telephone
communications (-0.8 percent), electric utilities (0.6 percent), air
transportation (0.9 percent), and trucking, except local (1.8 percent).
In addition to cable TV, three measured industries in the
transportation, communications, and utilities sector had cost increases
above the overall nonfarm average: gas utilities (2.7 percent), U.S.
Postal Service (3.3 percent), and radio and TV broadcasting (3.9 percent).
These data are a product of the BLS Industry
Productivityprogram. Data are subject to revision. Unit labor costs—the cost of the labor input
required to produce one unit of output—are computed by dividing total
compensation by real output. For more information see BLS Report 939,
"Unit Labor Costs for Selected Industries, 1987-97," (PDF
44K). Note that the figure for railroad transportation pertains to
1987-96.
Of interest
Spotlight on Statistics: National Hispanic Heritage Month
In this Spotlight, we take a look at the Hispanic labor force—including labor force participation, employment and unemployment, educational attainment, geographic location, country of birth, earnings, consumer expenditures, time use, workplace injuries, and employment projections.
.
Read more »
