U.S. worker productivity saw its largest annual decline in 2022 in nearly five decades, despite an improvement in the fourth quarter.
Nonfarm labor productivity, which measures hourly output per worker, fell 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter from the year-ago period, the Department of Labor reported on Feb. 2.
Total worker productivity for 2022, in general, fell 1.3 percent from 2021, the biggest annual decline since 1974, when productivity on average fell 1.7 percent.
Last year was volatile, with productivity falling by 0.4 percent on an annual basis in the first quarter, tumbling again, to 2.1 percent in the second quarter, and down 1.1 percent in the third quarter.
However, productivity in the final quarter rose at a seasonally adjusted and annualized rate of 3 percent, exceeding economists’ expected growth rate of 2.4 percent. Compared to the third quarter, productivity rose at a 1.4 percent annualized rate, which was upwardly revised from the previous estimate of 0.8 percent….