News & Commentary Weekly Highlights:

• Bloomberg Business: Tsipras Asks Greece’s Creditors to Withdraw Latest Proposal (Friday)
• Bloomberg View: The Search for Meaning in Jobs Numbers (Friday)
• Wall Street Journal: How the Fed’s East Coast Tilt Warps Monetary Policy (Thursday)
• Wall Street Journal: U.S. Workers Ask: Where’s My Raise? (Wednesday)
• Market Watch: There’s No Margin for Error in Today’s 2% Economy (Tuesday)

 

Top Economic Indicator Highlights:

Productivity and Costs (second estimate, Q1)

Nonfarm Business Sector

• Productivity (output per hour): -3.1% annual rate, Previous quarter: -2.1%, Recovery avg.: 1.1%
  • Output: -1.6%
  • Hours: 1.6%
• Real hourly compensation: 6.5%
• Unit labor costs: 6.7%, reflecting a 3.3% increase in nominal hourly compensation and a 3.1% decline in productivity
• Noteworthy: Real nonfarm business sector productivity grew only 0.3% from the first quarter of 2014. Two consecutive quarters of productivity decline at this depth has not been seen since the early ‘90s. Annual growth for 2014 and 2013 was 0.7% and 0.9%, respectively. Annual growth in real compensation per hour in the nonfarm business sector grew only 0.9% for 2014 and fell 0.3% in 2013.

 

THIS WEEK

Upcoming Economic Reports & Releases:

Major Indicators

• Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (10am, Tuesday)
• Treasury Budget (2pm, Wednesday)
• Retail Sales (8:30am, Thursday)
• Import and Export Prices (8:30am, Thursday)
• Business Inventories (10am, Thursday)
• Producer Price Index for Final Demand (8:30am, Friday)

 

Chart of the Week: