February’s surprise 0.1% increment in industrial production came despite severe winter weather during the month that was expected to hamper production. Amongst the index’s biggest gainers were computers and information processing equipment, which each rose roughly 1%. As Bloomberg put it these increments ‘signal the pickup in U.S. business investment is being sustained’. However, could […]
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Productivity
Productivity was revised up slightly for 2Q09 to +6.6% from +6.4%, while unit labor costs were revised down to -5.9% from -5.8%. Additionally, the ADP employment survey indicated a loss of -298K jobs, compared to -360K last month. This was worse than analyst’s estimates. Nevertheless, the details behind the ADP report, like the rest of […]
Productivity rose 6.4% in 2Q09 compared to a consensus forecast of 5.5%. This is the biggest gain since 2003. The drop was due to the amount of hours worked declining faster than output. At the same time, unit labor costs fell -5.8% versus a consensus forecast of -2.8%. In face the of lay-offs and reduced […]