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US Labor Productivity Does Something It’s Never Done Before
While previewing this week's deluge of key data out of the world's largest economy, I exhorted reade
Labor productivity, charted quarterly from 1990, looks like it has receded back to the long-term growth trendline after a sharp jump in 2020 and a slow easing in 2021-2023 YTD. https://data.bls.gov/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?request_action=wh&graph_name=PR_lprbrief
I think this data now emphasizes manufacturing industries. A change in data collection or methods? I don’t find confirmation/explanation on the BEA site but I looked at the data “by detailed industry”, labor productivity for service industries uniformly went to “N.A>” in 2022. https://www.bls.gov/productivity/tables/labor-productivity-detailed-industries.xlsx Maybe data for service industries is inferred at a sector level, but I wonder how reliable it is.
It looks like my comment on the Lagarde post was in the wrong place. I seem to have anticipated a bit.