Topic Archives: U.S. Statistical System

Why This Counts: Breaking Down Multifactor Productivity

Productivity measures tell us how much better we are at using available resources today compared to years past. All of us probably think about our own productivity levels every day, either in the workplace or at home. I find my own productivity is best in the morning, right after that first cup of coffee!

On a larger scale, here at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, we produce two types of productivity measures: labor productivity and multifactor productivity, which we will call “MFP” for short. An earlier Why This Counts blog post focused on labor productivity and its impact on our lives. In this blog we will focus on why MFP measures matter to you.

Why do we need two types of productivity measures?

Labor productivity compares the amount of goods and services produced—what we call output—to the number of labor hours used to produce those goods and services.

Multifactor productivity differs from labor productivity by comparing output not just to hours worked, but to a combination of inputs.

What are these combined inputs?

For any given industry, the combined inputs include labor, capital, energy, materials, and purchased services. MFP tells us how much more output can be produced without increasing any of these inputs. The more efficiently an industry uses its combination of inputs to create output, the faster MFP will grow. MFP gives us a broader understanding of how we are all able to do more with less.

Does MFP tell us anything about the impact of technology?

It does. But we cannot untangle the impact of technology from other factors. MFP describes the growth in output that is not a result of using more of the inputs that we can measure. In other words, MFP represents what is left, the sources of growth that we cannot measure. These include not just technology improvements but also changes in factors such as management practices and the scale or organization of production. Put simply, MFP uses what we do know to learn more about what we want to know.

What can MFP tell us about labor productivity?

Labor productivity goes up when output grows faster than hours. But what exactly causes output to grow faster than hours? Labor productivity can grow because workers have more capital or other inputs or their job skills have improved. Labor productivity also may grow because technology has advanced, management practices have improved, or there have been returns to scale or other unmeasured influences on production. MFP statistics help us capture these influences and measure their impact on labor productivity growth.

How are MFP statistics used?

We can identify the sources of economic growth by comparing MFP with the inputs of production. This is true for individual industries and the nation as a whole.

For example, a lot has been written about the decline of manufacturing in the United States. MFP increased between 1992 and 2004 by an average of 2.0 percent per year. In contrast, MFP declined from 2004 through 2016 by an average of 0.3 percent per year. A recently published article uses detailed industry data to analyze sources of this productivity slowdown.

MFP is a valuable tool for exploring historical growth patterns, setting policies, and charting the potential for future economic growth. Businesses, industry analysts, and government policymakers use MFP statistics to make better decisions.

Where can I go to learn more?

Check out the most recent annual news release to see the data firsthand!

If you have a specific question, you might find it answered in our Frequently Asked Questions. Or you can always contact MFP staff through email or call (202) 691-5606.

Just like your own productivity at work and at home, the productivity growth of our nation can lead to improvements in the standard of living and the economic well-being of the country. Productivity is an important economic indicator that is often overlooked. We hope this blog has helped you to learn more about the value of the MFP!

Topics: Industries | Productivity | Students (K-12) | U.S. Statistical System | Why This Counts
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Labor Day 2018 Fast Facts

About 92 percent of civilian workers with access to paid holidays receive Labor Day as a paid holiday. Before you set out for that long holiday weekend, take a moment to look at some fast facts we’ve compiled that show the current picture of our labor market.

Working

Working or Looking for Work

  • The civilian labor force participation rate—the share of the population working or looking for work—was 62.9 percent in July. The rate had trended down from the 2000s through the early 2010s, but it has remained fairly steady since 2014.

Not Working

  • The unemployment rate was 3.9 percent in July. After 6 months at 4.1 percent, the rate has had offsetting movements in recent months. In May, the rate hit its lowest point, 3.8 percent, since April 2000.
  • In July, there were 1.4 million long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more). This represented 22.7 percent of the unemployed, down from a peak of 45.5 percent in April 2010 but still above the 16-percent share seen in late 2006.
  • Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for teenagers was 13.1 percent in July, while the rates were 3.4 percent for adult men and 3.7 percent for adult women. The unemployment rate was 6.6 percent for Blacks or African Americans, 4.5 percent for Hispanics or Latinos, 3.1 percent for Asians, and 3.4 percent for Whites.

Job Openings

Pay and Benefits

  • Average weekly earnings rose by 3.0 percent between July 2017 and July 2018; adjusted for inflation, real average weekly earnings are up 0.1 percent during this period.
  • Civilian compensation (wage and benefit) costs increased 2.8 percent between June 2017 and June 2018; adjusted for inflation, real compensation costs decreased 0.1 percent during this period.
  • Paid leave benefits are available to most private industry workers. The access rates in March 2018 were 71 percent for sick leave, 77 percent for vacation, and 78 percent for holidays.
  • In March 2018, civilian workers paid 20 percent of the cost of medical care premiums for single coverage and 32 percent for family coverage.

Productivity

  • Labor productivity—output per hour worked—in the U.S. nonfarm business sector grew 1.1 percent in 2017, continuing the historically below-average pace seen since the Great Recession. Some industries had impressive growth, however, including wireless telecommunications carriers (11.1 percent) and electronics and appliance stores (9 percent).
  • Multifactor productivity growth in the private nonfarm business sector recovered in 2017, rising 0.9 percent after falling 0.6 percent in 2016. Labor input for multifactor productivity—measured using the combined effects of hours worked and labor composition—grew 2.0 percent in 2017, outpacing the long-term 1987–2017 growth for labor input by 0.5 percentage points.

Safety and Health

  • In 2017, 14.3 percent of all workers were exposed to hazardous contaminants. The use of personal protective equipment was required for 11.8 percent of workers.

Education

  • Occupations that typically require a bachelor’s degree for entry made up 21.5 percent of employment. This educational category includes registered nurses, teachers at the kindergarten through secondary levels, and many management, business and financial operations, computer, and engineering occupations.
  • For 18 of the 30 occupations projected to grow the fastest between 2016 and 2026, some postsecondary education is typically required for entry.

Unionization

  • The union membership rate—the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of unions—was 10.7 percent in 2017, unchanged from 2016. In 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent.
  • Total employer compensation costs for union workers were $47.65 and for nonunion workers $32.87 per employee hour worked. The cost of benefits accounted for 40.4 percent of total compensation or $19.23 for union workers and 29.1 percent or $9.56 for nonunion workers.

Work Stoppages

  • In the first 7 months of 2018, there were 445,000 workers involved in work stoppages that began this year. This is the largest number of workers involved in stoppages since 2000, when 394,000 workers were involved. There have been 12 stoppages beginning this year, which surpassed the 7 recorded in all of 2017.

From an American worker’s first job to retirement and everything in between, BLS has a stat for that! Want to learn more? Follow us on Twitter @BLS_gov.

Topics: Benefits and Compensation | Beyond the Numbers | Earnings and Wages | Educational Attainment | Employment | Employment Projections | Geographic Information | Industries | Job Openings, Hires, and Separations | Labor Force Characteristics | Occupations | Productivity | The Economics Daily | U.S. Statistical System | Unemployment | Union Membership | Workplace Injuries and Illnesses
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A Clearer Look at Response Rates in BLS Surveys

Hands holding a tablet computer and completing a surveyPeople know BLS for our high-quality data on employment, unemployment, price trends, pay and benefits, workplace safety, productivity, and other topics. We strive to be transparent in how we produce those data. We provide detailed information on our methods for collecting and publishing the data. This allows businesses, policymakers, workers, jobseekers, students, investors, and others to make informed decisions about how to use and interpret the data.

We couldn’t produce any of these statistics without the generous cooperation of the people and businesses who voluntarily respond to our surveys. We are so grateful for the public service they provide.

To improve transparency about the quality of our data, we recently added a new webpage on response rates to our surveys and programs. We previously published response rates for many of our surveys in different places on our website. Until now there hasn’t been a way to view those response rates together in one location.

What is a response rate, and why should I care?

A response rate is the percent of potential respondents who completed the survey. We account for the total number of people, households, or businesses we tried to survey (the sample) and the number that weren’t eligible (for example, houses that were vacant or businesses that had closed). Response rates are an important measure for survey data. High response rates mean most of the sample completed the survey, and we can be confident the statistics represent the target population. Low response rates mean the opposite, and data users may want to consider other sources of information.

Do response rates tell the whole story?

A low response rate may mean the data don’t represent the target population well, but not necessarily. How much a low response rate affects how well the estimates represent the population is called nonresponse bias. Some important research by Robert M. Groves and Emilia Peytcheva published in the January 2008 issue of Public Opinion Quarterly looked at the connection between response rates and nonresponse bias in 59 studies. The authors found that high response rates can reduce the risk of bias, but there is not a strong correlation between response rate and nonresponse bias. Some surveys had a very low response rate but did not have evidence of high nonresponse bias. Other surveys had high nonresponse bias despite high response rates.

This means we should look at response rates with other measures of data quality and bias. BLS has studied nonresponse bias for many years. We have links to many of those studies in our library of statistical working papers.

What should I be looking for on the new page?

With response rates from multiple surveys in a single place, you can look for patterns across surveys and across time. For example, across every graph we see that response rates are declining over time. This is happening for nearly all surveys, government and private, on economic and other topics. It is simply getting harder to persuade respondents to answer our surveys.

Individual survey response rates are also interesting compared with other BLS surveys. We see that some surveys have higher response rates than others. To understand why this might be, we’ll want to look at the differences between the surveys. Each survey has specific collection procedures that affect response rates. For example, the high response rate for the Annual Refiling Survey (shown as ARS in the second chart) may catch your eye. When you see that it has a 12-month collection period and is mandatory in 26 states, the rate makes more sense.

We also can see how survey-specific changes have affected a survey’s response rate. For example, we see a drop in the response rate for the Telephone Point of Purchase Survey around 2012. This drop likely resulted from a change in sample design, as the survey moved from a sample of landline telephones to a dual-frame sample with both landlines and cell phones. Because the response rate for this survey continues to decline, we are developing a different approach for collecting the needed data.

What should I know before jumping into the new page?

There’s a lot of information! We’ve tried to make it as user friendly as possible, including a glossary page with definitions of terms and a page to show how each survey calculates their response rates. On the graphs, you can isolate a single survey by hovering over each of the lines. You can also download the data shown in each graph to examine it more closely.

We hope you will find this page helpful for understanding the quality of BLS data. Please let us know how you like it!

Topics: Benefits and Compensation | Consumer Spending | Earnings and Wages | Employment | Employment Projections | Geographic Information | Inflation and Prices | Labor Force Characteristics | Productivity | Survey Respondents | U.S. Statistical System | Unemployment | Workplace Injuries and Illnesses
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Why This Counts: What are the U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes?

Cargo ship in port at nightThe U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics provides data of all kinds for workers, jobseekers, students, employers, investors, and policymakers. Most BLS measures provide information on U.S. labor markets and living conditions: the national labor force participation rate; the unemployment rate in Illinois; the Consumer Price Index for Anchorage, Alaska. But did you know we also provide international data? With a focus on global trade, we publish the U.S. import and export price indexes.

What are import and export prices indexes?

Import and export price indexes describe changes in the prices for goods and some services exchanged between people and businesses in the United States and trading partners around the world. BLS collects prices of imported and exported products from businesses and calculates price trends monthly.

A brief history of international prices:

  • BLS published the first import and export price indexes in 1973.
  • We published the first all-goods price indexes for imports in 1983 and for exports in 1984.
  • Monthly publication launched in 1989 and expanded in 1994.
  • Import price indexes by country of origin began publication in 1992.

What is an import? An export?

To measure import and export prices, we first need to define “import” and “export.” An import is any product entering the United States from a foreign country; an export goes the opposite direction. A good becomes an import or export when it crosses the border. An imported service is bought by a U.S. resident from a foreign resident, while an exported service is sold by a U.S. resident to a foreign resident.

What is a price index?

A price index measures the average change in prices for a basket of the same products over time. We measure price changes for thousands of imports and exports each month. We publish these price changes for specific products and for the specific industries and U.S trading partners that import or export the products. To learn more about price indexes, see our blog about the Producer Price Indexes.

How do we collect the data?

Like the Consumer Price Index and Producer Price Indexes, the import and export price indexes depend on the cooperation of businesses—in this case, U.S. establishments importing and exporting goods and services. Thousands of public-minded businesses voluntarily provide data through a monthly survey. With all the data we collect, we strive to minimize the burden on our respondents and protect their confidentiality and privacy.

What do import and export prices measure?

If you’ve ever taken an introductory economics course, you know markets determine price changes through supply and demand. On the most basic level, import and export price indexes measure how supply and demand affect prices for goods and services traded internationally. Let’s look at a quick example, the export price index for computers. A U.S. computer manufacturer may look at current trends to figure out short-term sales strategies. Then consider the flip side—the price index for import computers. A U.S. resident shopping for a new computer may want to research whether prices have risen or fallen over the past few months. Or that computer shopper might look at the data from the past few years to see if there is a certain time of year that prices fall. But the importance of import and export prices extends even further than individuals and companies.

  • The indexes are used to account for inflation in other official U.S. statistics like trade balances published by the Census Bureau and the international accounts for U.S. Gross Domestic Product published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
  • When economists calculate measures of U.S. industries’ competitiveness compared with our trading partners, they use import and export price indexes.
  • A change in the import price index can tilt domestic inflation in the same direction.
  • When exchange rates between currencies rise and fall, the indexes can show how much of that change is “passed-though” to an import or export price.

Why do import and export price indexes data matter?

The data matter because U.S. consumers depend on imports! Simply put, many of the products sold to consumers in the United States are imported from abroad. And there is a good chance what you buy for your home depends on import prices. But consumers aren’t the only ones who care about these prices. U.S. producers sell abroad and buy from overseas. Producers care about import prices because many imports to the United States go into the goods and services produced domestically. U.S. auto manufacturers care about the prices of auto parts they import from abroad. Producers who export goods to foreign countries benefit from having access to price information. Knowing trends in export agricultural prices, for example, could influence what crops a U.S. grower chooses to produce.

Want to find out more?

Topics: Geographic Information | Industries | Inflation and Prices | U.S. Statistical System | Why This Counts
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Why This Counts: What is the Producer Price Index and How Does It Impact Me?

The Producer Price Index (PPI) – sounds familiar, but what is it exactly? Didn’t it used to be called the Wholesale Price Index? It is related to the Consumer Price Index, but how? How does the PPI impact me?

Lots of questions! In this short primer we will provide brief answers and links for more information. Note, if you are an economist, this blog is NOT for you. It’s an introduction for everyone else!

Video: Introduction to the Producer Price Index

Before we go any further – what is an index? (You said this was a primer!)

An index is like a ruler. It is a way of measuring the change of just about anything. Producer price indexes measure the average change in prices for goods, services, or construction products sold as they leave the producer.

Here is an example of how an index works:

  • Suppose we created an index to track the price of a gallon of gasoline.
  • When we start tracking, gasoline costs $2.00 a gallon.
  • The starting index value is 100.0.
  • When gasoline rises to $2.50, our index goes to 125.0, which reflects a 25-percent increase in the price of gasoline.
  • If gasoline then drops to $2.25, the index goes to 112.5. The $0.25 decline in price reflects a 10-percent decrease in the price of gasoline from when the price was $2.50.

If you are a gasoline dealer, you might find a gasoline index useful. Instead of driving around every day to write down the prices of each competitor’s gasoline and averaging them together, the index can provide the data for you. (Question #5 in the PPI Frequently Asked Questions explains how to interpret an index.)

PPI is called a “family” of indexes. There are more than 10,000 indexes for individual products we release each month in over 500 industries. That is one big family!

OK, so PPI has lots of data – but what kind of data?

PPI produces three main types of price indexes: industry indexes, commodity indexes, and final demand-intermediate demand (FD-ID) indexes.

An industry refers to groups of companies that are related based on their primary business activities, such as the auto industry. The PPI measures the changes in prices received for the industry’s output sold outside the industry.

  • PPI publishes about 535 industry price indexes and another 500 indexes for groupings of industries.
  • By using the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) index codes, data users can compare PPI industry-based information with other economic programs, including productivity, production, employment, wages, and earnings.

The commodity classification of the PPI organizes products by type of product, regardless of the industry of production. For example, the commodity index for steel wire uses pricing information from the industries for iron and steel mills and for steel wire drawing.

  • PPI publishes more than 3,700 commodity price indexes for goods and about 800 for services.
  • This classification system is unique to the PPI and does not match any other standard coding structure.

We also have more information on the differences between the industry and commodity classification systems.

The FD-ID classification of the PPI organizes groupings of commodities by the type of buyer. For example, the PPI for final demand measures price change in all goods, services, and construction products sold as personal consumption, capital investment, export, or to government. As a second example, the PPI for services for intermediate demand measures price change for services sold to business as inputs to production.

  • PPI publishes more than 300 FD-ID indexes.
  • This FD-ID classification system is unique to the PPI and does not match any other standard coding structure.

Now let’s go back to the beginning

  • 1902: Wholesale Price Index program begins, which makes it one of the oldest continuous set of federal statistics. The Wholesale Price Index captures the prices producers receive for their output. In contrast, the Consumer Price Index captures the prices consumers pay for their purchases.
  • 1978: BLS renames the program as the Producer Price Index to more accurately reflect that prices are collected from producers, rather than wholesalers.
  • PPI also shifts emphasis from a commodity index framework to a stage of processing index framework. This minimized the multiple counting that can occur when the price for a specific commodity and the inputs to produce that commodity are included in the same total index. For example, think of gasoline and crude petroleum both included in an all-commodities index.
  • 1985: PPI starts expanding its coverage of the economy to include services and nonresidential construction. As of January 2018, about 71 percent of services and 31 percent of construction are covered.
  • 2014: PPI introduces the Final Demand-Intermediate Demand system.
  • The “headline” number for PPI is called the PPI for Final Demand. It measures price changes for goods, services, and construction sold for personal consumption, capital investment, government purchases, and exports. We also produce a series of PPIs for Intermediate Demand, which measure price change for business purchases, excluding capital investment.
  • Let me give you an example: Within the PPI category for loan services, we have separate indexes for consumer loans and business loans. The commodity index for consumer loans is included in the final demand index and the commodity index for business loans is mostly in an intermediate demand index.
  • The Frequently Asked Question on the PPI for Final Demand provides even more information on this new way of measuring the PPI. The blog, Understanding What the PPI Measures, may also be helpful.
  • We also have an article that explains how the PPI for final demand compares with other government prices indexes, such as the CPI.

Why is the PPI important?

To me?

  • Inflation is the higher costs of goods and services. Low inflation may be good for the economy as it increases consumer spending while boosting corporate profits and stocks.
  • A change in producer prices may be a leading indicator of consumers paying more or less. Higher producer prices may mean consumers will pay more when they buy, whereas lower producer prices may mean consumers will pay less to retailers. For example, if the PPI gasoline index increases, you may see an increase soon at the pump!

To others (which may impact me!)?

  • Policymakers, such as the Federal Reserve, Congress, and federal agencies regularly watch the PPI when making fiscal and monetary policies, such as setting interest rates for consumers and businesses.
  • Business people use the PPI in deciding price strategies, as they measure price changes in inputs for their goods and services. For example, a company considering a price increase can use PPI data to compare the growth rate of their own prices with those in their industry.
  • Business people adjust purchase and sales contracts worth trillions of dollars by using the PPI family of indexes. These contracts typically specify dollar amounts to be paid at some point in the future. For example, a long-term contract for bread may be escalated for changes in wheat prices by applying the percent change in the PPI for wheat to the contracted price for bread.

Video: How the Producer Price Index is Used for Contract Adjustment

PPI is a voluntary survey completed by thousands of businesses nationwide every month. BLS carefully constructs survey samples to keep the number of contacts to a minimum, making every business, large and small, critical to the accuracy of the data. We thank you, our faithful respondents! Without you, BLS could not produce gold-standard PPI data.

Finally, check out the most recent monthly PPI release to get all the latest numbers. Head to the PPI Frequently Asked Questions to learn more. Or contact the PPI information folks at (202) 691-7705 or ppi-info@bls.gov.

Want to learn more about BLS price programs? See these blogs:

 

Topics: Industries | Inflation and Prices | U.S. Statistical System | Why This Counts
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