Productivity rises by solid 2.6 percent in quarter

Thursday, May 5, 2005 | 9:43 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Productivity, a key factor needed to boost living standards, rose at an annual rate of 2.6 percent in the first three months of the year, the best showing in nine months.

The Labor Department reported today that the increase in productivity, a measure of worker efficiency, compared to a 2.1 percent rate of increase in the October-December quarter of last year. It was a slightly better gain than economists had been expecting and represented the fastest increase since a 3.9 percent jump in the April-June quarter of last year.

With the solid increase in productivity -- the amount of output per hour of work -- unit labor costs rose by a moderate 2.2 percent in the first three months of the year. That was up slightly from a 1.7 percent rise in unit labor costs in the fourth quarter but far below the 4 percent surge in the third quarter of 2004.

In other news, the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose for to 333,000 last week, reflecting a larger-than-expected rise of 11,000 benefit applications from the previous week. It was the second straight weekly increase following a rise of 22,000 the previous week.