Fourth-Quarter Productivity Rises at 2.1% Rate

.S. workers’ productivity grew at a 2.1% annual rate in the fourth quarter, faster than previously estimated, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

Productivity is a measure of how much an employee produces for every hour of work. The latest reading compared with a 0.8% rate estimated last month. Economists had predicted a 1.5% rate, Bloomberg reported.

It had increased at a 1.3% annual rate in the third quarter.

Labor costs, the amount paid for each unit of production, rose at a 1.8% annual rate, the third straight quarterly gain. They had risen 4% in the third quarter, the largest since the first quarter of 2001.

Productivity rose 1.7% in the last six months of 2004, less than half the pace of the first two quarters.