US Q2 non-farm productivity +1.3% vs +1.6% expected

Prelim Q2 non-farm productivity report:

• Prior non-farm productivity -3.1% (revised to -1.1%)
• Q2 unit labor costs +0.5% vs +0.0% expected
• Prior unit labor costs +6.7% (revised to 2.3%)

The big revisions skew the picture. Overall they show better productivity growth in H1 and more-benign growth in unit labor costs.

Productivity remains a disappointment. These are annualized numbers and the H1 net shows just 0.3% growth from June 2014 to June 2015.

Benchmark revisions

The report included revisions back to 2012 and they showed productivity growing just 0.5% on average in those years, down from 0.9% previously.