The times of extraordinarily high U.S. labor productivity growth rates are over, at least for now, according to a report released Tuesday by The Conference Board, the global business research and membership organization.

Though still healthy compared with many other developed nations, the productivity growth rate slumped to 1.8 percent in 2005 in the United States, down from 3 percent in 2004.

"The U.S. performance is still good compared to Europe," says Bart van Ark, Director of The Conference Board international economic research program. "What is striking in these new numbers is the sustained productivity acceleration in the emerging markets of Central and Eastern Europe and Asia. In fact, economies such as China and Poland are accelerating to around 8 percent."

The Conference Board is one of the few providers of comprehensive worldwide measures of labor productivity, which is a powerful indicator of economic efficiency. Labor productivity, which measures the amount of output obtained for each hour of work, determines a nation's living standards (measured by per capita income). The more hours people work and the higher the level of productivity, the higher is per capita income.

Most countries in the developed world experienced a slowdown in productivity growth rates in 2005, with growth rates in the 1.5 percent to 2 percent range. Compared to the United States, productivity was about the same as Japan's 1.9 percent, but much worse for the average of the EU-15's 0.5 percent.

Source: Xinhua