In 2008, productivity — as measured by output per hour of all persons — rose 2.8 percent in the non-farm business sector. This productivity increase, the largest since a similar gain in 2004, was due more to the declines in hours than the small gains in output.
Output increased 1.0 percent in 2008 and hours decreased 1.8 percent.
In 2007, the increase in productivity was 1.4 percent, while output increased 2.0 percent and hours rose by 0.5 percent.
This data is from the BLS Productivity and Costs program. Data is subject to revision. For more information, see the "Productivity and Costs: Preliminary Fourth Quarter and Annual Averages for 2008" (PDF) (HTML), news release USDL 09-0116.
