Multifactor Productivity Trends for Detailed Industries – 2008: “Multifactor productivity – defined as output per unit of combined inputs – increased in about 40 percent of the 86 four-digit NAICS manufacturing industries in 2008, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This was down from 2007, when multifactor productivity increased in about 60 percent of those industries. Fewer manufacturing industries recorded multifactor productivity increases in 2008 than in any year since 2001. Within the transportation sector in 2008, multifactor productivity rose 0.6 percent in air transportation and declined 1.9 percent in line-haul railroads. Multifactor productivity indexes relate the change in output to the change in the combined inputs of labor, capital, and intermediate purchases consumed in producing that output. Multifactor productivity measures the joint influences on economic growth of a variety of factors, including technological change, returns to scale, enhancements in managerial and staff skills, changes in the organization of production, and other efficiency improvements.”