Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 7, 1991                   TAG: 9103070077
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

WORKER OUTPUT DOWN

The Labor Department said the drop in non-farm productivity was the sharpest since a 0.9 percent slide in the recession of 1982. Combined with the 0.7 percent decrease in 1989, it was the first back-to-back retreat since 1979-80.

The decline in productivity - defined as output per hour of work - occurred despite a revised 0.3 percent increase at an annual rate in the final quarter of 1990, a bit stronger than the 0.1 percent increase reported last month.

Increased productivity, or getting each worker to produce more during each hour of work, is considered vital to increasing the nation's standard of living without boosting inflation. It also can increase the competitiveness of U.S. goods overseas.

Total business productivity, including farming, declined 0.6 percent for the year, compared with a 0.5 percent decline in 1989. Last year's drop, as in the non-farm sector, was the largest since 1982.

Before the two-year slide in productivity that began in 1989, the nation had averaged productivity growth of 1.6 percent a year since 1982, following the end of the last recession.

That was better than the 1.2 percent average in the 1970s but far worse than the 2.5 percent annual gain posted in the two decades following World War II.