Productivity crashed over the past year as the economy added workers at a rapid clip even as economic output grew slowly, data from the Department of Labor showed on Tuesday.
The productivity of the business sector fell 2.5 percent compared with a year ago, the largest decline ever recorded in data going back to the first quarter of 1948, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Tuesday. The decline comes from a 1.5 increase in economic output and a 4.1 percent increase in total hours worked.
Productivity declined at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.6 percent in the second quarter. That’s a less rapid decline than the 7.6 percent contraction recorded in the first three months of the year but slightly below economist expectations for a 4.5 percent decline.
The economic output of the business sector fell 2.1 percent and hours worked increased 2.6 percent.
The data does not…
