Productivity grows at 1.1%

Friday, Aug. 9, 2002 | 10:03 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Productivity grew at its most sluggish pace in a year, rising at a annual rate of 1.1 percent in the second quarter, reflecting an economic recovery that has lost considerable momentum from the beginning of the year.

The downshifting in business efficiency came after productivity -- the amount of output per hour of work -- soared at a rate of 8.6 percent in the first quarter, the strongest showing since the spring of 1983, the Labor Department reported today.

The 1.1 percent growth rate marked the weakest performance since the second quarter of 2001, when productivity actually dipped by 0.1 percent.

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