Productivity Cooling as Gains From Tech Boom Fade: Economy

Four years into an expansion, the productivity of American workers has slowed and some economists say there are few signs it will soon rebound.

Employee output per hour grew at an average 0.7 percent annual rate over the past 12 quarters, which economists at JPMorgan Chase & Co. say is a pace so slow it’s rarely seen outside of recessions. Gains since the recovery began in June 2009 have averaged 1.5 percent, the weakest of the nine postwar expansions that lasted as long, according to IHS Global Insight.