From about 1973 to 1995, productivity rose an average of 1.5 percent a year.

But productivity is now rising by less than 2 percent a year.

Through those years, productivity rose at only a 1.4 percent annual rate.

During the second half of the last decade, productivity rose to 2.5 percent.

For the three years starting in 1996, productivity rose at an average annual rate of 1.9 percent.

American workers' productivity rose 0.2 percent in the fourth quarter.

Productivity in the second quarter rose at a revised rate of 4.8 percent.

If productivity and growth are rising, they contend, then new jobs will follow.

It had previously said productivity rose 2.6 percent in the first quarter.

It says that productivity rose by 5.9 per cent in the year to October.