The Labor Department reports that U.S. business productivity, the amount of output per hour of work, rose at an annual rate of 2.9 percent during the first three months of the year. In a separate report, the Labor Department notes that the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits shot up by 25,000 last week, largely due to temporary layoffs in the auto industry. It is unclear how business investors will react to the productivity news.
See "Investors to React to Productivity Numbers", Associated Press, June 1, 2005