U.S. worker productivity saw its largest annual decline in 2022 in nearly five decades, despite an improvement in the fourth quarter.
Nonfarm labor productivity, which measures hourly output per worker, fell 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter from the year-ago period, the Department of Labor reported on Feb. 2.Total worker productivity for 2022, in general, fell 1.3 percent from 2021, the biggest annual decline since 1974, when productivity on average fell 1.7 percent.
