Productivity Growth

By Spencer,

Third quarter nonfarm productivity rose at a 9.5% annual rate as output rose 4.0% and hours worked fell at a 5.0% rate. Historically, productivity has been a very good leading indicator of real GDP growth lagged two quarters.

Productivity is also highly cyclical and the first year of a recovery typically experiences the strongest productivity growth.

Compensation jumped to a 3.8% annual rate, but on a year over year basis it is only up 0.5%.
Consequently, the year over year change in unit labor cost was -5.2%, the largest drop in recent years. With productivity growth this strong and such weak compensation growth it is hard to see how anyone can be seriously concerned about a resurgence of inflation. Except for oil, even surging commodity prices would not have a significant impact on the overall price level since they account for such a small share of final prices. Moreover, since potential GDP is a function of productivity growth and labor force growth the argument that the very large GDP gap is overstated does not seem to hold much weight as long as productivity growth is so strong.


I also updated the chart on Labor’s Share to show that this trend is actually accelerating.