4Q2020 Final Headline Productivity Contracts
A simple summary of the headlines for this release is that labor costs are growing and productivity is contracting on a quarter-over-quarter basis.
Analyst Opinion of Productivity and Costs
The overall view this quarter is that nonfarm productivity is up 2.4 % from the same quarter one year ago while unit costs are up 4.2 %.
Please note my productivity analysis at the end of this post which is at odds with the headline view. Doing a productivity analysis during a major recession or recovery period is a waste of time as productivity is obscured by government interventions.
The market was expecting from Econoday:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate voted by the slimmest of margins Thursday to begin debating a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, after Democrats made eleventh-hour changes aimed at ensuring they
TALLAHASSEE — Florida officials are recommending that the state’s antiquated unemployment processing system be replaced after a review confirmed what had long been known: a broken system full of glitches
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — At the end of 2020, California had lost a record 1.6 million jobs during the pandemic. Nearly a half-million people stopped even trying to look for
While real wages increased by nearly 5% nationally over the past five years, the average workers in some parts of the country experienced little to no gains.