Nonfarm productivity and costs provide measures of the productivity of workers and the costs associated with producing a unit of output. During times of inflationary concern, the unit labor cost index in this report can move the market. If productivity is falling, unit labor costs may be rising faster than hourly earnings and other labor cost measures. Because productivity can be quite volatile from one quarter to the next and because the previously released GDP report will give a good indication of productivity growth, this report seldom has a significant impact on the market.
In addition to the preliminary report, a revision to the productivity data is released in the third month of each quarter. As with the preliminary report, the GDP data released prior to the productivity data provide a clear indication of the direction of the productivity revision.