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Economy in Brief
U.S. Mortgage Applications Tumble
The MBA Mortgage Loan Applications Index fell 4.1% w/w (+39.7% y/y) in the weekend January 22...
U.S. Consumer Confidence Recovers During January
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index increased 2.5% (-31.5% y/y) to 89.3 during January...
U.S. FHFA House Price Index Rose Further in November
The FHFA House Price Index increased 1.0% m/m in November...
U.S. Energy Prices Are Mixed
The price of regular gasoline rose to $2.39 per gallon (-4.5% y/y) in the week ended January 25...
U.K. Retail Survey Shows Extreme Weakness
The CBI U.K. retail volume survey shows dramatically weakened data for January and for the February outlook...
Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
by Tom Moeller November 1, 2018
Output per hour in the nonfarm business sector grew 2.2% (SAAR, 1.3% y/y) in Q3'18 following a 3.0% gain in Q2. A 2.0% rise had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Nonfarm business output rose 4.1% (3.7% y/y) following a 5.0% increase while hours-worked improved 1.8% (2.4% y/y) after a 2.0% gain.
Unit labor costs rose 1.2% (1.5% y/y) last quarter and reversed a 1.0% Q2 decline. A 1.1% increase had been expected. Compensation grew 3.5% (2.8% y/y) following a 1.9% increase.
In the manufacturing sector, productivity edged 0.5% higher (1.3% y/y) after a 1.2% rise. Output increased 3.4% both q/q and y/y after a 2.6% gain. Hours-worked grew 2.9% (2.1% y/y) following a 1.4% rise.
Unit labor costs in the factory sector rose 0.9% both q/q and y/y after a 0.1% uptick. Compensation grew 1.5% in Q3 (2.2% y/y) after a 1.3% improvement.
The productivity & cost figures are available in Haver's USECON database. The expectations figures are from the Action Economics Forecast Survey and are found in the AS1REPNA database.
Productivity & Costs (SAAR, %) | Q3'18 | Q2'18 | Q1'18 | Q3'18 Y/Y | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nonfarm Business Sector | |||||||
Output per Hour (Productivity) | 2.2 | 3.0 | 0.3 | 1.3 | 1.1 | 0.1 | 1.3 |
Compensation per Hour | 3.5 | 1.9 | 3.8 | 2.8 | 3.4 | 1.1 | 3.1 |
Unit Labor Costs | 1.2 | -1.0 | 3.4 | 1.5 | 2.2 | 0.9 | 1.8 |
Manufacturing Sector | |||||||
Output per Hour (Productivity) | 0.5 | 1.2 | -0.8 | 1.3 | 0.7 | 0.3 | -1.5 |
Compensation per Hour | 1.5 | 1.3 | 4.6 | 2.2 | 3.3 | 0.6 | 2.5 |
Unit Labor Costs | 0.9 | 0.1 | 5.5 | 0.9 | 2.6 | 0.3 | 4.1 |