Correction of "Productivity and Costs: Second Quarter 2004" news release

The "Productivity and Costs" news releases of August 10, 2004 and September 2, 2004 and the associated historical database updates contained some incorrect data. Data for the most recent quarter in those releases for the business, nonfarm business, manufacturing, and nonfinancial corporate sectors were not affected. 

In August, a new methodology for estimating the average weekly hours at work of supervisory and nonproduction workers was introduced into BLS major sector productivity measures.  This methodology was applied to historical series as well as to the most recent numbers.  In the process of introducing the methodology, some of the data used in hours calculations were misclassified by industry; this resulted in incorrect data for some published measures for some time periods.

Please see the reissued "Productivity and Costs: Second Quarter 2004" news release (PDF) (TXT) for the corrected 2002-04 data; this news release replaces the one originally issued on September 2. Corrected historical indexes and percent changes for all published sectors can be obtained using the following tools: Create Customized Tables, Series Report, and FTP downloads, accessible at www.bls.gov/lpc/home.htm#data. 

The news release of August 10 will not be reissued -- note that the appendix tables in that news release contained some incorrect data for 1999-2001 and for some earlier years. Tables showing the corrected data as it should have appeared in the August 10 release can be obtained by contacting the Division of Major Sector Productivity at dprweb@bls.gov or calling 202-691-5604. Corrected historical data also are available using the aforementioned tools.

Last Modified Date: October 13, 2004

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