Ahead Of The Bell: Productivity

WASHINGTON (AP) — Worker productivity, the key ingredient to rising living standards, likely grew in the first quarter while wage pressures dipped as the recession eased a bit and inflation stayed a remote threat.

Productivity, the amount of output per hour of work, is expected to rise at an annual rate of 0.6 percent in the January-March period, while unit labor costs grew 2.8 percent, according to economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters. If accurate, those figures would compare with an annualized productivity drop of 0.4 percent and wage pressure growth of 5.7 percent in the fourth quarter.

The Labor Department is scheduled to release the new report Thursday at 8:30 a.m. EDT.

While the combination of falling productivity and rising wage pressures normally would have raised alarm bells about inflation, the threat of any price spikes was seen as remote at the end of last year given the severity of the recession.

Regulators and economists still are not worried about inflation since many workers are more concerned about keeping their jobs than demanding higher wages.