U.S. Productivity Drops Most Since 1947, Driving Up Labor Costs

U.S. productivity dropped in the first quarter by the most since 1947 as the economy shrank, while labor costs surged and illustrated an extremely tight job market.

Productivity, or nonfarm business employee output per hour, decreased at a 7.5% annual rate from the previous three months, according to Labor Department figures Thursday. That compared to a 6.3% gain in the fourth quarter and the 5.3% projected decline in a Bloomberg survey of economists.

While productivity growth rates can be extremely volatile in normal business cycles, the pandemic and subsequent recovery over the past two years has made the figures ...