{"id":396881,"date":"2026-01-08T21:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T21:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/396881\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T21:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T21:02:08","slug":"us-third-quarter-productivity-rises-at-fastest-pace-in-two-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/396881\/","title":{"rendered":"US third-quarter productivity rises at fastest pace in two years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">WASHINGTON, Jan 8 (Reuters) &#8211; U.S. worker productivity grew at its fastest pace in two years in the \u200bthird quarter as businesses invested heavily in artificial \u200cintelligence, depressing labor costs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Nonfarm productivity, which measures hourly output per worker, accelerated \u200cat a 4.9% annualized rate, the Labor Department&#8217;s Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">That was the quickest pace since the third quarter of 2023 and followed an upwardly revised \u20604.1% growth rate in \u200cthe second quarter. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast productivity would grow at a 3.0% \u200drate after a previously reported 3.3% pace of expansion in the April-June quarter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">The report was delayed by the 43-day federal government shutdown.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Productivity \u200bgrew at a 1.9% rate from a year ago. \u200cBusinesses are spending on AI, which economists said could further boost productivity. The jump in productivity helps to explain the gap between strong gross domestic product growth and a lackluster labor market. The economy grew at a robust \u20604.3% rate in the third quarter. \u200bIn contrast, private job gains averaged \u200b55,000 per month in the three months through October.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Unit labor costs &#8211; the price of labor per \u200dsingle unit of \u2060output &#8211; decreased at a 1.9% rate in the third quarter. That followed a 2.9% pace of decline \u2060in the April-June quarter. Labor costs increased at a 1.2% rate from \u200ca year ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by \u200cChizu Nomiyama and Paul Simao)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON, Jan 8 (Reuters) &#8211; U.S. worker productivity grew at its fastest pace in two years in the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46,112326,148041,12522,34225,116437],"class_list":["post-396881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy","tag-growth-rate","tag-labor-costs","tag-labor-department","tag-pace","tag-worker-productivity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}