Productivity is on the upswing
Marketplace Morning Report
Marketplace
4.5 • 927 Ratings
🗓️ 7 May 2026
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Labor productivity has been on a growth streak for the past year and a half. It increased 0.8% in the first quarter of this year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and is up almost 3% from a year ago. How much of this boils down to AI? Also on the show: threatened tariffs against the European Union and a conversation about U.S. dollars, the oil shock, and investment from Gulf countries.
Transcript
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| 0:35.7 | We're getting more productive. |
| 0:37.9 | Well, maybe we is too much. |
| 0:39.5 | Maybe you are. |
| 0:40.4 | The country is from Marketplace. |
| 0:43.1 | I'm Sabrina Bennisier in New York. |
| 0:44.4 | How much our economy makes for all the hours we all work. |
| 0:49.4 | That is labor productivity, and it has been on a growth streak for the past year and a half or so. |
| 0:53.9 | It increased eight-tenths of a percent in the first quarter this year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and it's up almost three percent from a year ago. |
| 1:01.9 | Diane Swank is chief economist at the audit tax and advisory firm, KPMG, and she is here to help us decode what is going on. |
| 1:08.5 | Hi, Diane. |
| 1:09.4 | Good morning. |
| 1:10.0 | So labor productivity, you know, how productive |
| 1:12.5 | we are, seems to be on the upswing. Is that AI? Well, it's a little soon to say that AI and the |
| 1:20.7 | application and adoption of AI is accounting for this, but certainly the fear of how AI may |
| 1:26.7 | disrupt future business models is |
| 1:29.2 | prompting firms to do more with less. That isn't necessarily the kind of productivity we want to |
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