PRODUCTIVITY • Jun 2024 • Volume 13 / Number 6
This Beyond the Numbers article uses new labor productivity and related data series from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics productivity program to examine how pet ownership trends are changing. Productivity data for the pet care services industry show trends such as increased pet ownership; younger pet owners choosing to pay more for individualized, quality pet care; and “pet tech” bringing the gig economy to pet owners and integrating technology into how they care for their pets.
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Recent articles
PRICES & SPENDING
The Producer Price Index (PPI) program is a broad measurement tool that comprises around 10,000 indexes that track the average changes in selling prices for goods, services, and construction. It aims to reflect sales to all types of buyers while measuring price movements from the perspective of producers. The belief that the PPI is a single index is a common misconception, implying that there is a single, topline index covering the whole producing economy. Misconceptions such as this can contribute to other misunderstandings about the PPI and its role in tracking inflation.
PRICES & SPENDING
Inflation persisted in 2023, albeit at a decelerating rate compared with 2021 and 2022. Over the year, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) grew by the third largest over-the-year rate since 2007. The CPI is a measure of the average change over time in the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services. How did the different categories of the CPI contribute to the over-the-year increase in 2023?
PRODUCTIVITY
U.S. employment has increased steadily since the second quarter of 2020—the low point of the COVID-19 pandemic recession—adding more than 21 million jobs and growing at an average annual rate of 5.6 percent since that time. Alongside these employment gains is a perhaps lesser-known story: a string of declines in the average weekly hours worked of employees. This measure has fallen in six of the last seven quarters and has receded back to its level in the second quarter of 2020. This trend prompts the question: is it unusual for average weekly hours worked to decline while we experience sustained job growth? And what may be contributing to this trend?
United States Department of Labor
