Productivity in the U.S. nonfarm business sector rose at an annual rate of 2.2 percent in the second quarter of 2008, slower than the 2.6 percent pace logged in the first quarter, the Labor Department reported Friday.
Analysts had been expecting the second-quarter growth pace for productivity, the amount of output per hour of work, to pick up slightly to 2.7 percent.
Compared with the same quarter a year ago, productivity in nonfarm business sector increased by 2.8 percent in the April-to-June period.
Meanwhile, labor cost pressures eased in the second quarter.
Employers' unit labor costs, or costs of wages and benefits for each unit of output, edged up by 1.3 percent at an annual rate, down from a revised 2.5 percent rise in the first three months of this year. That matched economists' expectations.
Increases in labor costs, which account for two-thirds of a company's production costs, are good for workers, but could lead the Federal Reserve to worry about inflation.
Growth in productivity allows companies to pay their workers more without having to raise the price of their products, which fuels inflation.
Source:Xinhua
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