Tag Archives: Productivity

State Productivity: A BLS Production

March 3, 2020BLS Commissioner

We have a guest blogger for this edition of Commissioner’s Corner. Jennifer Price is an economist in the Office of Productivity and Technology at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. She enjoys watching theatrical performances when she’s not working.

I recently had the pleasure of attending a high school play. The cast was composed of a male and female lead and at least a dozen supporting actors. The program listed the performers and acknowledged many other students, parents, teachers, and administrators. They all played some important role to bring the play to life—lighting, sound, painting props, sewing costumes, creating promotional materials, selling tickets, working concessions. All of these pieces came together harmoniously to make the performance a success.

Setting the Stage: New Measures of State Productivity

We can view the health of the nation’s economy through the same lens. Our diversified economy is made up of lead performers and supporting roles in the form of industries. Some industries contribute more heavily to growth in output or productivity, playing the star role. Other industries are supporting characters, contributing to a smaller, but necessary, share of growth. Our productivity program recently published a webpage that examines how industries contribute to the nation’s private business output and productivity growth.

We also can examine these roles geographically. Until recently, BLS productivity measures were only produced at the national level. Last June, BLS published experimental measures of state labor productivity for the private nonfarm business sector. These measures, which cover the period from 2007 to 2017, will help us learn more about productivity growth in each state and how each state contributes to national productivity trends.

Measuring productivity for all states allows us to credit the role played by each state, not just the total performance of the national economy or region. Just as each person, no matter how small their role, was necessary for the success of the school play, each state contributes to how we evaluate national or regional productivity. When we examine the contribution of each state to total productivity trends, we find that, like actors, no two states perform identically. Similar individual growth rates may have different impacts on the productivity of the nation or region. By analyzing state productivity trends over the long term, we learn more about regional business cycles, regional income inequality, and the role of local regulations and taxes on growth.

From 2007 to 2017, labor productivity changes ranged from a gain of 3.1 percent per year in North Dakota to a loss of 0.7 percent per year in Louisiana.

Editor’s note: Data for this map are available in the table below.

We estimate each state’s annual contribution to national or regional productivity growth by multiplying the state’s productivity growth rate by its average share of total current dollar national or regional output. The economic size of each state influences its contribution to national and regional estimates. From 2007 to 2017, California was our lead performer, with the largest contribution to national productivity growth. The state’s productivity grew 1.7 percent per year on average, and its large economy means it contributed more than one-fifth of the 1.0-percent growth in national labor productivity.

Editor’s note: Data for this chart are available in the table below.

Supporting actors included Texas and New York. Making a cameo appearance was North Dakota; despite having the largest productivity growth rate, it ranked 28th in terms of its contribution to national productivity growth. Stars in each region included Illinois (Midwest), New York (Northeast), Texas (South), and California (West). Understudies—those states with the largest growth rates—were North Dakota (Midwest), Pennsylvania (Northeast), and Oklahoma (South). Oregon and Washington shared this role out West.

Second Act

For now, our new measures cover the private nonfarm sector for all 50 states and the District of Columbia from 2007 to 2017. These measures include output per hour, output, hours, unit labor costs, hourly compensation, and real hourly compensation. Our measures of labor productivity for states are experimental, meaning we’re still assessing them and considering ways to improve them. In the second act, we will be looking into producing state-level measures for more detailed sectors and industries.

For an encore performance, check out our state labor productivity page. We’d love to hear your feedback! Email comments to productivity@bls.gov.

Annual percent change in labor productivity in the private nonfarm sector, 2007–17
State	Annual percent change
North Dakota	3.1
California	1.7
Oregon	1.7
Washington	1.7
Colorado	1.6
Oklahoma	1.6
Maryland	1.5
Montana	1.5
Pennsylvania	1.5
Massachusetts	1.4
New Mexico	1.4
Vermont	1.4
Idaho	1.3
Kansas	1.3
Nebraska	1.1
New Hampshire	1.1
South Carolina	1.1
Tennessee	1.1
Texas	1.1
West Virginia	1.1
Alabama	1.0
Hawaii	1.0
Kentucky	1.0
Minnesota	1.0
New York	1.0
Rhode Island	1.0
South Dakota	1.0
Virginia	1.0
Georgia	0.9
Arkansas	0.8
Missouri	0.8
Ohio	0.8
Utah	0.8
Illinois	0.7
North Carolina	0.7
Delaware	0.6
Florida	0.6
Iowa	0.6
Indiana	0.5
Mississippi	0.5
New Jersey	0.5
Wisconsin	0.5
Alaska	0.4
Arizona	0.4
District of Columbia	0.4
Michigan	0.4
Maine	0.3
Nevada	0.3
Wyoming	0.1
Connecticut	-0.5
Louisiana	-0.7

States with the largest contributions to national labor productivity, average annual percent change, 2007–17
State	State contribution to U.S. labor productivity
California	0.22
Texas	0.10
New York	0.08
Pennsylvania	0.06
Washington	0.04
Massachusetts	0.04
Illinois	0.03

Tags: Innovation, Jennifer Price, Productivity, Regions and states, Statistics awareness

Let’s Celebrate the Productive U.S. Workforce

September 11, 2019BLS Commissioner

Earlier this month our nation celebrated Labor Day. We celebrate Labor Day for many good reasons, but one of the best is to appreciate, even for just one day, how amazingly productive our nation’s workforce is. As we shop online or in stores, we rarely stop to think about the skills and effort it takes to produce our goods and services. Let’s take a moment to celebrate that productivity and the progress we have seen in the last few years.

Indeed, productivity of labor is at the heart of the American economy. How much workers produce for each hour they labor and how efficiently they use resources determines the pace of economic growth and the volume of goods that supply everyone (workers included) with the products and services that shape our daily lives. Growing productivity means that our standard of living very likely is improving.

Our workers are very productive. On average, each U.S. worker produced goods and services worth $129,755 last year. That’s compared with the next largest world economies: Germany at $99,377; the United Kingdom at $93,226; Japan at $78,615; China at $32,553; and India at $19,555.

Despite our great reliance on rising productivity to attain the good things of life, academics and researchers still marvel at the mysteries that surround the subject. What drives productivity change? What are the key factors behind these international differences in output per worker?

For example, does the quality of labor alone determine the rate of productivity growth? It is certainly a component of what drives labor productivity, although some countries have high educational and training levels but low productivity per worker. Labor quality has been steadily rising in the United States, but we don’t know the impact on productivity as the baby boomers retire and are replaced.

What is the right mix of labor and technology needed for changing the productivity growth rate? How can we measure the value of the dignity of work, or the personal and social value that work yields? And, what is the role of technical knowledge and product design in determining the productivity of labor?

Then there’s the mysterious role of innovation. Economists think they know that invention and scientific breakthroughs can make massive changes to productivity. However, which innovations transform productivity, and have all the low-lying fruits of productivity enhancement already been harvested?

Despite our strong international showing, analysts who watch these data may be a tad bit concerned with the sluggishness in U.S. productivity growth over the past 10 years. Since 2011, the rate of growth in labor productivity has slowed to one-third of the pace shown between 2000 and 2008, despite acceleration in the past 2 years. Even when we broaden the concept of productivity to include the output attributable to the combination of labor and other productive factors (also known as multifactor productivity), the rate of growth is still one-third of the pace it was in the first decade of this century.

Even with a subsidence in the growth rate, it is worth noting that both labor input and output are on the rise. Since the start of the current business cycle expansion in 2009, the rate of growth in labor input has been five times what it was prior to the Great Recession during the previous expansion.

Output has also grown steadily, but at a slower rate than hours. Because labor productivity is the quotient of output divided by hours, productivity can slow even when both components are rising. The relationship between the relative growth of output and hours is one of the many features that makes productivity both challenging and fascinating to study.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics engages with an extensive network of researchers in and out of the academic community whose mission is, like ours, to better understand and measure the productivity of the U.S. labor force. Labor productivity is an amazing subject because it incorporates so many facets of the nation’s economy into one statistic. By peeling back layers and looking at the details behind the summary number, we can gain valuable insight on the hours and output of our nation’s workforce. We will continue to produce and provide context for these valuable statistics that help tell the story of America’s workers.

That said, we should never lose sight of the big picture. America’s workers lead the world in their capacity to create the goods and services that define our economy and improve our lives. And that, certainly, is something great to celebrate!

Topics: Educational Attainment | Productivity

Tags: Baby boomers, International, Labor market trends, Productivity, Recession, Statistics awareness

Labor Day 2019 Fast Facts

August 29, 2019BLS Commissioner

I have been Commissioner of Labor Statistics for 5 months now, and I continue to be amazed by the range and quality of data we publish about the U.S. labor market and the well-being of American workers. As we like to say at BLS, we really do have a stat for that! We won’t rest on what we have done, however. We continue to strive for more data and better data to help workers, jobseekers, students, businesses, and policymakers make informed decisions. Labor Day is a good time to reflect on where we are. This year is the 125th anniversary of celebrating Labor Day as a national holiday. Before you set out to enjoy the long holiday weekend, take a moment to look at some fast facts we’ve compiled on the current picture of our labor market.

Working

Our monthly payroll survey shows that employment continues to expand—now 13.0 million jobs above the January 2008 peak reached as the 2007–09 recession began.
Employment growth has averaged 165,000 per month so far in 2019. That compares with an average monthly gain of 223,000 jobs in 2018.

Working or Looking for Work

The civilian labor force participation rate—the share of the population working or looking for work—was 63.0 percent in July 2019. 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 3.7 percent in July. In April and May, the rate hit its lowest point, 3.6 percent, since 1969.
In July, there were 1.2 million long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more). This represented 19.2 percent of the unemployed, down from a peak of 45.5 percent in April 2010 but still above the 16-percent share in late 2006.
Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for teenagers was 12.8 percent in July 2019, while the rates were 3.4 percent for both adult women and adult men. The unemployment rate was 6.0 percent for Blacks or African Americans, 4.5 percent for Hispanics or Latinos, 2.8 percent for Asians, and 3.3 percent for Whites.

Job Openings

On the last business day of June 2019, the number of nonfarm job openings was 7.3 million. That was just below the 7.6 million job openings in late 2018 and early 2019, which was the highest level recorded since the series began in December 2000.
There were 3.4 million quits in June 2019. That’s near the historic high of 3.5 million quits in several months earlier in 2019.
The ratio of unemployed people per job opening was 0.8 on the last business day in June 2019. This ratio has been below 1.0 each month since March 2018.

Pay and Benefits

Average weekly earnings rose by 2.6 percent from July 2018 to July 2019. After adjusting for inflation in consumer prices, real average weekly earnings were up 0.8 percent during this period.

Civilian compensation (wage and benefit) costs increased 2.7 percent in June 2019 from a year earlier. After adjusting for inflation, real compensation costs rose 1.1 percent over the year.
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.
About 91 percent of civilian workers with access to paid holidays receive Labor Day as a paid holiday.
In March 2018, civilian workers with employer-provided medical plans 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 1.8 percent from the second quarter of 2018 to the second quarter of 2019.
Some industries had much faster growth in 2018, including electronic shopping and mail-order houses (10.6 percent) and wireless telecommunications carriers (10.1 percent).
Multifactor productivity in the private nonfarm business sector rose 1.0 percent in 2018. That growth is 0.2 percentage point higher than the average annual rate of 0.8 percent from 1987 to 2018.

Safety and Health

In 2017, there were 5,147 fatal workplace injuries. While this represents a 1-percent decrease from 2016, the 2017 total was the second highest count of fatal work injuries since 2008. It was, however, below the numbers of workplace deaths in the 1990s, when over 6,000 fatalities occurred per year.
There were about 2.8 million nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses reported in 2017 by private industry employers. That was nearly 45,800 fewer cases than a year earlier. This resulted in an incidence rate of 2.8 cases per 100 full-time workers in 2017. The rate is down from 9.2 cases per 100 full-time workers in 1976.

In 2018, 8.6 percent of all workers were exposed to hazardous contaminants. The use of personal protective equipment was required for 7.3 percent of workers.

Unionization

The union membership rate—the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of unions—was 10.5 percent in 2018, down by 0.2 percentage point from 2017. 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 private-industry union workers were $47.27 and for nonunion workers $33.26 per employee hour worked in March 2019. The cost of benefits accounted for 41.0 percent of total compensation (or $19.37) for union workers and 28.4 percent (or $9.46) for nonunion workers.

Work Stoppages

In the first 7 months of 2019, there have been 307,500 workers involved in major work stoppages that began this year. (Major work stoppages are strikes or lockouts that involve 1,000 or more workers and last one full shift or longer.) For all of 2018, there were 485,200 workers involved in major work stoppages, the largest number since 1986, when about 533,100 workers were involved.
There have been 15 work stoppages beginning in 2019. For all of 2018, 20 work stoppages began during the year.

Education

Occupations that typically require a bachelor’s degree for entry made up 22 percent of employment in 2018. 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. Be sure to check out our updated employment projections, covering 2018 to 2028, that we will publish September 4!

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.

Tags: Benefits, BLS products and services, CPI, Employment Situation, Labor force participation, Labor market trends, Productivity, Recession, Statistics awareness, Unemployment, Workplace safety and health

Wage Information Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

May 6, 2019BLS Commissioner

On April 16, BLS reported that median weekly earnings for full-time wage and salary workers rose 2.7 percent over the year.

On April 30, BLS reported that the Employment Cost Index for wages of private industry workers rose 3.0 percent over the year.

On May 2, BLS reported that hourly compensation in the nonfarm business sector rose 2.5 percent over the year.

On May 3, BLS reported that average hourly earnings for private industry workers rose 3.2 percent over the year.

What’s going on here? Why so much wage information? And which one is RIGHT?

At BLS, we get questions like this all the time, and the answer is usually “it depends.” There is no one answer that fits every question on wages; there are just different answers depending on what you want to measure. People come to BLS looking for all kinds of answers, and we want to provide as much information as we can. Thus, we have many measures of wages (and other forms of compensation) — a dozen, to be exact.

Do you want to know about wages for an industry? An occupation? By location? For men and women? Based on education? Adjusted for inflation? Including benefits? How wages relate to spending patterns? How wages relate to worker productivity? BLS has it all, and more.

We have so much wage information that even we get confused. So we developed a tool to make the dozen wage series a little easier to understand. It’s an interactive guide that lists all 12 data sources and 32 key details about each of those sources, like how often it is available.

I can hear you now — that’s 384 pieces of information (12 x 32). I’m just looking for one piece of information, not almost 400. And how do you fit all that information on one page, anyway?

The interactive guide limits the display to 3 sources at a time — you pick the sources you want to see.

A table showing 3 BLS sources of compensation information and data characteristics available from those sources.

Or you can pick one characteristic, like “measures available by occupation” and get an answer for all 12 data sources.

A table showing the occupational information available from several BLS data sources on compensation.

This tool is on the BLS beta site. We want you to give it a try and provide feedback. Check it out and leave us a comment. Want to know even more? Watch this video that helps make sense of BLS wage information.

Tags: Benefits, BLS products and services, New tools, Occupational profiles, Productivity, Statistics awareness, Videos

Why This Counts: Breaking Down Multifactor Productivity

October 11, 2018BLS Commissioner

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

Tags: Methodology, Productivity, Statistics awareness, Videos