US Productivity Jumps by Most Since 2020, Blunting Labor Costs

US labor productivity logged its biggest increase in the second quarter in nearly three years, helping to offset rising labor costs.

Productivity, or nonfarm business employee output per hour, rose at a 3.7% annual rate in the second quarter after registering a decline in the first three months of the year, according to figures out Thursday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists had called for a 2.2% rise.

Unit labor costs, or what a business pays employees to produce one unit of output, rose at a 1.6% rate after ...