Productivity Off At Major Firms During 1979: Productivity Declines During '79
Productivity, a key factor in the nationÛªs battle against inflation, declined last year for the first time in five years among the nationÛªs major corporations, the Labor Department said yesterday.</br></br>It reported that productivityÛÓoutput per hour of workÛÓfell 0.4 percent during 1979 among nonfinancial corporations, which represent about two thirds of the private business sector.</br></br>The department had reported in January that productivity in the private business sector as a whole fell 0.9 percent in 1979.</br></br>YesterdayÛªs figures zero in on corporate America and are considered an indication of what is happening particularly among larger corporations.</br></br>Productivity in this corporate sector has fallen for a whole year only twice before, since the government began keeping figures in 1958. Thre was a 0.1 percent decline in 1970 and a 3.4 percent decline in the recession year of 1974.