Third-Quarter Worker Productivity Jumps 9.5%

Third-quarter worker productivity jumped to an annual rate of 9.5%, the Labor Department said Thursday.

The level was well above economists’ forecasts of a 6.5% annual rate, which Labor had originally released last month, Bloomberg reported. Second-quarter productivity had risen 6.4%.

Among manufacturers, productivity soared 13.6%, the biggest gain since productivity records began being kept in 1987.

Productivity is a measure of how much an employee produces for every hour of work.

The report also showed that hours worked declined at a 5% pace, while output rose at a 4% rate.

Labor costs fell at a 5.2% rate, capping the biggest 12-month drop since such records began in 1948, Bloomberg reported.

When worker efficiency improves at a slower pace and labor becomes more expensive, companies may raise prices in order to guard their profits, contributing to more rapid inflation.