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Labour productivity, hourly compensation and unit labour cost, second quarter 2015

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Released: 2015-09-04

Labour productivity

Second quarter 2015

-0.6% 

(quarterly change)

Labour productivity of Canadian businesses declined 0.6% in the second quarter, following a 0.5% decrease in the first quarter.

Chart 1  Chart 1: Labour productivity of Canadian businesses declines for a second consecutive quarter
Labour productivity of Canadian businesses declines for a second consecutive quarter

In the second quarter, the output of businesses decreased at a rate similar to the first quarter, while hours worked continued to increase.

Real gross domestic product (GDP) of businesses declined 0.3% in the second quarter, following a 0.4% decrease in the first quarter. The decline in the second quarter was mainly attributable to goods-producing businesses, where output fell significantly. In contrast, the output in service-producing businesses advanced 0.8%, after no growth in the first quarter.

At the same time, hours worked in the business sector (+0.3%) increased for a fourth straight quarter. Hours worked increased 0.5% in goods-producing businesses and 0.2% in service-producing businesses. Hours worked were up in 11 of the 16 major industrial sectors. Decreases were recorded in mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction (-2.4%), utilities (-1.4%), finance and insurance (-0.5%), retail trade (-0.5%) and transportation and warehousing (-0.4%).

Productivity in service-producing businesses was up 0.6% in the second quarter, while it was down 2.5% in goods-producing businesses. In the first quarter, a 0.5% decline was observed in both service- and goods-producing businesses.

In the second quarter, the decline of productivity in the business sector as a whole was mainly the result of productivity declines in construction (-2.3%), mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction (-2.2%) and manufacturing (-1.4%). Productivity was up in every service industry sector except information and cultural industries (-1.0%), professional services (-0.9%) and administrative services (-0.5%).

In the United States, labour productivity of businesses grew 0.9% in the second quarter, after declining for two consecutive quarters. Real GDP of American businesses rose 1.1% in the second quarter, after edging up 0.1% in the first quarter. At the same time, hours worked rose 0.3%, after increasing 0.5% in the first quarter.

For Canadian businesses, the decrease in productivity was larger than the decline in hourly compensation (-0.2%) in the second quarter. As a result, the labour cost per unit of output for Canadian businesses was up 0.4% in the second quarter, after increasing 1.3% in the first quarter. Hourly compensation decreased 0.2% in both the goods- and service-producing businesses. Arts, entertainment and recreation as well as mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction posted the largest declines.

After two quarters of depreciation, the average value of the Canadian dollar relative to the American dollar rose 0.9% in the second quarter. Given this appreciation, the unit labour cost in American dollars for Canadian businesses was up 1.4%, the first increase in three quarters.

By comparison, the unit labour cost of American businesses decreased 0.3%, following a 0.6% gain in the first quarter.


  Note to readers

Revisions

With this release on labour productivity and related measures, data were revised back to the first quarter of 2015 at the aggregate level and to the first quarter of 2014 at the industry level.

Productivity measure

The term "productivity" in this release refers to labour productivity. For the purposes of this analysis, labour productivity and related variables cover the business sector only.

Labour productivity is a measure of real gross domestic product (GDP) per hour worked.

Unit labour cost is defined as the cost of workers' wages and benefits per unit of real GDP.

All the growth rates reported in this release are rounded to one decimal place. They are calculated with index numbers rounded to three decimal places, which are now available on CANSIM.

Next release

Labour productivity, hourly compensation and unit labour cost data for the third quarter will be released on December 4. Data in this release will reflect the 2015 comprehensive revision to the gross domestic product that will be published on December 1. This will include a revision back to 1981 at the aggregate level and to 1997 at the industry level.

Products

The publication Canadian Economic Accounts Quarterly Review (Catalogue number13-010-X) has been discontinued. Links to other releases from the national accounts can still be found in the System of macroeconomic accounts module, accessible from the Browse by key resource module of our website.

Contact information

For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (613-951-4636; statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@canada.ca).

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