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Revenue per Worker Is Up. Are Firms Getting a Larger Share?

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Abstract

From the Great Recession until 2019, U.S. labor productivity growth disappointed. Nonfarm-business output per hour grew about 1 percent a year from 2010 to 2019, down from 3 percent in the late 1990s. This slowdown was especially pronounced in manufacturing, and it coincided with a slowdown in the growth of revenue per worker among public firms. However, since 2019, growth has picked up to twice the 2010s rate, around 2 percent. In this post, I use data from firms’ 10-K filings to unpack this recent acceleration. I first show that the acceleration appears in public firms’ revenue per worker, then document how the gains went into profit margins, and finally, what firm characteristics predicted significant profit margin increases. The increase in profit margins is consistent with ongoing declines in the labor share of output.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeremy Pearce, 2026. "Revenue per Worker Is Up. Are Firms Getting a Larger Share?," Liberty Street Economics 20261015, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fednls:103947
    DOI: 10.59576/lse.20261015
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    JEL classification:

    • L2 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior
    • O3 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights

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