TL;DR
US preliminary Q4 productivity declined 0.1% in 2017, citing a shortage of workers as the obstacle to economic growth. Nonfarm productivity fell at a 0.1 percent annualized rate October through December.
A recent CNBC article outlined a fourth quarter decline of productivity in 2017, citing a shortage of workers as the obstacle to economic growth. Nonfarm productivity, which measures hourly output per worker, unexpectedly fell at a 0.1 percent annualized rate October through December.
According to CNBC, “Hours worked increased at a rate of 3.3 percent in the fourth quarter, the fastest in three years, after rising at a 1.2 percent pace in the third quarter. Unit labor costs, the price of labor per single unit of output, rose at a pace of 2.0 percent pace in the final three months of 2017 after slipping at a rate of 0.1 percent in the third quarter.”
This is the weakest performance since the first quarter of 2016.
In this story
This story was originally published in 1851 Franchise on February 1, 2018. Burnaze summarizes and links to the original reporting.
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