During the first quarter of the year, U.S. nonfarm productivity dropped by 1.7% and labor costs rose by 4.2%. The rise in labor costs are the greatest seen in over a year, but are still up by 0.9% compared with the first quarter of 2013. Productivity has risen significantly in the fourth quarter of last year, but many are blaming the extremely cold weather because the hours worked and the output demanded for some workers may have dropped. Economists polled by Reuters has predicted that productivity would drop by 1%, a little over half of the actual drop.
See "Winter?s chill sends US productivity reeling as labor costs skyrocket", CNBC, May 6, 2014