WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. business productivity
rose more quickly in the fourth quarter than first thought, notching an
unexpectedly brisk 2.1 percent annual rate, while the growth in labor costs was
cut to a mild 1.3 percent pace, a government report showed on Thursday
The pickup in productivity growth slowed the growth in labor costs - a key gauge
of inflation or profit pressures -- to a 1.3 percent rate from the originally
reported 2.3 percent clip. Economists had forecast labor costs would be revised
to a 1.9 percent growth rate and will likely be reassured that inflation appears
to be more contained than was suggested by the first estimate of the data last month.
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