Labor Productivity
Nonfarm business labor productivity is output per hour worked — how much the economy produces for each hour of labor. Rising productivity is the only sustainable source of higher living standards and lets wages rise without feeding inflation, because more output per hour offsets the higher pay.
Latest reading
As of January 2026, Productivity (Productivity YoY %) stands at 2.8% — up from 2.5% the prior reading. Strong productivity growth is the corporate-margin tailwind: it lets firms absorb wage increases without raising prices or sacrificing profit. Weak or falling productivity, with wages still rising, pushes unit labor costs up and squeezes margins. Read it together with unit labor costs — the two are the numerator and denominator of the margin story. Series history runs from 1948 to present.
Productivity YoY %
- Index (2017=100)
- 119.4
Next release: Aug 6, 2026
Full history
Year-over-year %
Quarter-over-quarter %
The latest-quarter change in output per hour — the higher-frequency momentum read behind the year-over-year rate.
Index level
The output-per-hour index (2017 = 100). The long climb is the trend in living standards; the year-over-year view above isolates the cyclical productivity swings.
Methodology & data
Productivity is sourced from BLS via the Federal Reserve's FRED service (BLS via FRED (OPHNFB), quarterly, index 2017=100). We pull the complete history, chart it on a quarterly basis, overlay SPY for context, and generate a dated plain-English reading from the latest release — with no smoothing or adjustment beyond what the chart legend states.
Every reading is stamped with its release date, last updated 2026-06-29. Maintained and reviewed by Yuriy Matso; see our methodology for the standards every series on the site is held to.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Labor Productivity?
Nonfarm business labor productivity is output per hour worked — how much the economy produces for each hour of labor. Rising productivity is the only sustainable source of higher living standards and lets wages rise without feeding inflation, because more output per hour offsets the higher pay.
How do you read Productivity?
Strong productivity growth is the corporate-margin tailwind: it lets firms absorb wage increases without raising prices or sacrificing profit. Weak or falling productivity, with wages still rising, pushes unit labor costs up and squeezes margins. Read it together with unit labor costs — the two are the numerator and denominator of the margin story.
Where does the Productivity data come from?
BLS via FRED (OPHNFB), quarterly, index 2017=100. We chart the full history and publish a dated, plain-English reading with every release; the raw series is downloadable as CSV at /data/indicators/labor-productivity.csv.
How often is Productivity updated?
Productivity is a quarterly series from BLS, refreshed here as soon as a new release posts to FRED.