Getting the Most from Productivity Statistics

There are many ways that businesspeople can use statistics on productivity improvement to boost their organization's performance. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' Productivity and Costs reports consist of quarterly data issued in preliminary form one month after the end of the quarter. The...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Global business and organizational excellence 1990-10, Vol.9 (4), p.457
Main Author: Thor, Carl G
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Growth rate
Improvements
Input output
Labor
Manycountries
Productivity
Statistical data
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:There are many ways that businesspeople can use statistics on productivity improvement to boost their organization's performance. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' Productivity and Costs reports consist of quarterly data issued in preliminary form one month after the end of the quarter. The data are revised one month later and revised again when the next quarter's preliminary is issued. In many respects, international measures should be the most useful because productivity performance levels gain full meaning only when they are compared with the performance of competitors and trading partners. Whereas the output of US industries or of its entire manufacturing sector is measured on a value-added basis to avoid double-counting intermediate products, most industry data are on a value-of-shipments basis since relation to other industries is not at issue. For the businessperson concerned with the here and now, the major use of productivity statistics is to provide benchmarks for corporate strategic goal setting and evaluation of progress in improvement.
ISSN:1932-2054
1932-2062