Quick note: After my rant about productivity, first-quarter productivity numbers came in, and they sucked.

Joan McCullough wrote:

Q1 Productivity and Costs.  http://www.bls.gov/news.release/prod2.nr0.htm
Expect -1.3%.  Actual:  -1.0%.  I wanna’ kill myself, lookin’ at this one.
Because the quarter starts the year off with lousy Productivity after Q4’s -1.7%.
No consolation either from the Q1 y/y look at Productivity:  +0.6% which ain’t spit.
Here’s what they used to get the Q1 Productivity results:
Output was + 0.4%
Hours worked increased 1.5%
That’s trouble right there. 

(No PDF attached.)