US first quarter labour productivity revised higher

US labour productivity flatlined in the first three months of the year, revised data showed, instead of shrinking as had been previously estimated.

Non-farm labour productivity was unchanged in annualised terms in the first quarter of 2017, according to the Department of Labour.

That was up from an initially estimated drop of 0.6%.

Key to the above, first quarter output was revised to show a gain of 1.7%, versus a preliminary estimate of 1.0% growth.

Thanks to the above, unit labour costs, a key gauge of wage cost pressures in the economy were revised to show a rise of 2.2%, less than an initially estimate rise of 3.0%.

Versus the year-ago quarter labour productivity was 1.2% ahead alongside a 1.1% rise in unit labour costs.

Despite the upwards revisions to first quarter labour productivity, Monday's data remained well below the prints of 3.3% and 1.8% seen in the third and fourth quarters of 2016, respectively, Barclays Research noted.

"Trend productivity growth has been particularly weak in recent years and has reached historically low levels. By contrast, growth in unit labor costs has been picking up; and combined with slow growth in output prices, unit profits for companies have been squeezed in recent years," said Barclays's Pooja Sriram.