Nonfarm Productivity

February 6, 2025 Non-farm productivity 1.2% in the fourth quarter after climbing 2.3% in the third quarter and 2.1% in the second quarter.   The fourth quarter increase consisted of a 2.3% increase in output combined with a 1.0% increase in hours worked. Hence, a 1.2%...

Unit Labor Costs

February 6, 2025 Unit labor costs might be a term that is not familiar to you.  Unit labor costs represent the increase in compensation adjusted for the gains in productivity.  You might think that if labor costs are rising that would put upward pressure on...

Hourly Compensation

February 6, 2025 The Bureau of Labor Statistics  indicated that hourly compensation rose 4.2% in the fourth quarter after climbing by 2.9% in the third quarter.  In the past year compensation has risen 4.3%. Growth in hourly compensation is a good thing, but that...

ADP Employment

February 5, 2025 As shown above the ADP survey shows a respectable correlation with the private sector portion of the payroll employment data to be released a couple of days later.  And well it should.  ADP, or Automatic Data Processing, Inc. is a provider of...

Car and Truck Sales

February 4, 2025 Unit car and truck sales sank 7.5% in January to 15,603 thousand after having risen 1.3% in December and 3.4% in November.  Car sales picked up in the last few  months of 2024 but clearly got whacked in January.  The bitter cold weather throughout...