Research
summaries
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Productivity in industry
and government: 1973-91
Alexander Kronemer
The focus in the past year on economic
developments-particularly
stagnating
American
living standards and the abil-
ity of U.S. industries to compete success-
fully
in an increasingly
global econ-
omy-has
led to a great deal of discus-
sion about productivity.
Productivity
growth provides
the primary means to
higher income levels and is an important
indicator of the ability by U.S. industries
to compete worldwide. As part of the in-
dustry productivity program of the Bu-
reau of Labor Statistics, annual measures
for government
and industry productiv-
ity have been updated to the most current
year possible with the available data,
which in most cases is 199 1 or 1990.’
Five industries were added to the list
of those already published: dairy prod-
ucts, Standard Industrial Classification
(SIC) 202; natural and processed cheese,
SIC 2022; prepared fresh or frozen fish
and seafoods, SIC 2092; wood contain-
ers, SIC 244; and bolts, nuts, rivets, and
washers, SIC 3452. In addition,
two pre-
viously published
industries,
pharma-
ceutical
preparations,
SIC 2834, and
semiconductors
and related devices, SIC
3674, have been suspended from publi-
cation because of potential
limits
in
some of the data. The BLS industry pro-
ductivity program is assessing these data
reliability questions, while also examin-
ing alternative sources of data. Follow-
ing this assessment,
BLS may resume
publication of productivity measures for
these industries.
Alexander Kronemer
is an economist
in the Divi-
sion of Industry Productivity
Studies, Bureau of
Labor Statistics.
John Duke and Darlene Forte,
also with the division, contributed
to this report.
44 Monthly Labor Review
July I993
This report summarizes the trends ob-
served from this update. Labor produc-
tivity movements, as measured by output
divided by employee hours and average
annual percent changes in labor pro