The productivity of American workers shot up at a 6.1 percent seasonally adjusted annual rate in the final three months of 1993, the fastest in eight years.
The Labor Department report Tuesday said it was the best performance since a 6.9 percent advance in the first quarter of 1986 and helped boost non-farm productivity for 1993 by 1.7 percent.
Analysts said the improvement is coming at the expense of American jobs, as many companies restructure and work their employees harder and longer rather than add to payrolls.
Productivity, defined as output per number of hours worked, determines the nation’s living standards and the competitiveness of its products overseas.
There was little hint of inflation in the report, which said unit labor costs actually fell an annualized 3.1 percent from October through December. That was the largest decline since a 4.8 percent drop in the second quarter of 1983.
Combined with a 0.4 percent drop in the third quarter, it was the first consecutive quarterly decline in unit labor costs since the last half of 1962.
