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Manufacturing productivity in the United States increased 3.2 percent in 1996. compared with 3.4 percent in 1995, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U. S. Department of Labor. Of eight foreign economies for which data are available, only Germany and Japan had higher rates of productivity growth than the United States-The United Kingdom was the only economy in which productivity fell. U.S. productivity growth in I996 resulted from a 2.7 percent increase in output combined with a 0.5 percent decline in labor input, as measured by hours worked. In Germany, productivity increases were due to large drops in hours worked that more than offset declining output, while in Japan productivity growth was due solely to a rise in output.
Relative currency values play a role in international competitiveness. Currency values relative to the U.S. dollar depreciated in most of the foreign economies in I 996, causing unit labor costs to fall or to grow at a lower rate when measured on a U. S. dollar basis rather than on a national currency basis.The depreciation of the yen was primarily responsible for a I6
percent drop in unit labor costs in Japan, the largest drop of the economies studied.The two countries with substantially appreciating currencies, Italy and Sweden, were the only economies where U.S. dollar-based unit labor costs rose more than
' Former West Germany.
Quarterly rates are for the first month of the quarter. NOTE Quarterly figures for France and Germany are calculated by apptying annual adjustment factors to current published data and, therefore, should be viewed as less precise indicators of unemployment under US concepts than the annual figures
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