Early Estimates of Quarterly Unit Labour Costs

20/03/2015

Paris, March 2015

Unit labour costs (ULCs) in the OECD area rose by 0.5% in the fourth quarter of 2014, compared with 0.3% in the previous quarter, driven by a pick up in compensation costs and slowing productivity growth. This OECD total however masks diverging patterns across economies, with ULC growth slowing in nearly half of the OECD countries.