US Q4 productivity up 1.6 pct, unit labor costs jump by 6.6 pct

BY

The efficiency of US workers was revised sharply lower in the fourth quarter, while the cost of hiring workers almost quadrupled from earlier estimates, the Labor Department said today.

US workers increased their productivity by 1.6 pct in the fourth quarter, slightly less than the 1.7 pct economists had expected and just more than half the 3.0 pct gain the department had originally estimated.

As a result, unit labor costs were revised sharply higher, increasing by 6.6 pct in the fourth quarter, nearly four times as fast as the 1.7 pct gain estimated last month and almost twice as fast as the 3.4 pct gain expected in the revision.
The fourth quarter revisions bring last year s annual productivity gain down to slightly faster than half the speed of the roaring productivity gains of the first six years of this century.

For all of 2006, productivity rose a revised 1.6 pct, slower than the average annual gain of 2.8 pct in the years between 2000 and 2006.

Unit labor costs have risen a revised 3.4 pct since the fourth quarter of 2005, sharper than the 2.8 pct originally estimated. In 2006, unit labor costs rose an unrevised average of 3.2 pct, nearly three times as fast as the average annual gain of 1.2 pct in the years between 2000 and 2006.

Productivity has risen a revised 1.4 pct since the fourth quarter of 2005, down from the 2.1 pct earlier estimated.

lilyz206

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kwy

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