Productivity And Labor; More Evidence For A Supercycle

by Jeffrey P. Snider
Alhambra Partners

The BLS updated its productivity estimates yesterday to incorporate the BEA’s slight upward revision in GDP for Q1 2016. The changes to the productivity series were also small, where the initial estimate was for -1% (annualized) US labor productivity now revised to -0.6%. Private output, the BLS’s matching point in the BEA GDP series, was revised slightly higher to 0.86%.

[…] Since the start of 2014, total hours worked have averaged a gain of 2.15% (annualized) and thus the “best jobs market in decades.” That is significantly better than the 1.67% average increase in total hours during the worst of the housing bubble (2004-07) and more than double that “recovery” period as a whole (1.03% 2003-07). It is also more than the late 1990’s, where total hours averaged 1.96% from 1995 to 2000.

Continue Reading at AlhambraPartners.com…