Business

American workers doing great
by Ioana Madalina Tantareanu

Worker efficienty has grown, according to The Labor Department, to an annual rate of 1.8 percent in the April-June quarter, which is more than double than the 0.7% of the first 3 months of the year. Unit labor costs have rose on the other hand to a 2.1% rate. And while these high wages are good for workers, if they get too high, it can lead to unwanted inflation. A key interest was expectedly kept by Fed policymakers on they're meeting on Tuesday, while they were signaling that "downside risks to growth have increased somewhat." The second quarter improvements in productivity and wage pressures were not viewed as large enough to convince the central bank that inflation has been contained. Analysts noted that for the 12 months ending in June, unit labor costs are up by 4.5 percent, the highest year-over-year increase in nearly seven years. Still this 1.8 percent growth in productivity is seemingly low, considering the 2 percent expected. The government said that productivity rose by just 1 percent last year, down from a previous estimate of 1.6 percent. For 2005, the increase was 1.9 percent after a 2.7 percent rise in 2004. Previously, 2005 had been put at 2.1 percent and 2004 at 2.9 percent.

by Ioana Madalina Tantareanu for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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posted by Blog TechSource @ 12:54 PM