OECD System of quarterly unit labour cost indexes - Updated: May 2009

Unit labour costs in OECD countries continued to rise in fourth quarter of 2008

Download the entire news release (pdf)

15/05/2009 - Largely driven by falls in real output (gross domestic product at constant prices) due to the crisis, unit labour costs for the total economy rose 0.9% for the OECD area in the fourth quarter of 2008 and were up 2.9% year on year. The group of the major seven economies and the Euro area display similar aggregate trends. Unit labour costs rose 1.0% in the market services sector for the OECD area in the fourth quarter of 2008 and 2.7% on an annual basis. Among the major seven economies, unit labour cost growth rates in market services only increased in the United States (1.3%) and Japan (0.8%) in the fourth quarter. etc.

• Quarterly Unit Labour Cost indexes for OECD countries

The next publication date of the OECD System of quarterly unit labour cost indexes will be on 14 August 2009.

Contacts
For further information, journalists are invited to contact the OECD's Media Relations Division on (33) 1 45 24 97 00 or news.contact@oecd.org;  others should contact the Statistics Directorate on stat.contact@oecd.org.