Productivity in the US non-farm-business sector grew at an annual rate of 9.5% in Q-3 Y 2009, the biggest quarterly gain in six years, the US Labor Department reported Thursday. The Q-3 reading for productivity, the amount of output per hour of work, was also better than the 6.4% gain that economists had estimated. Employers’ unit labor costs, or costs of wages and benefits for each unit of output, plunged at an annual rate of 5.2%. The US economy rose at a pace of 3.5% in Q-3 after four consecutive quarters of contraction, a strong signal that the worst recession since the Great Depression is over. Productivity is considered the Key ingredient needed for rising living standards because it allows companies to pay their workers more without having to raise the price of their products, which fuels inflation.
-Paul A. Ebeling, Jnr. www.livetradingnews.com
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