Economy: May 11, 2001
Manufacturing productivity fell to a 0.3 percent annual rate in the first quarter of 2001 from a revised gain of 5.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2000, according to the U.S. Labor Department; this marks the first decline in productivity in six years...Unemployment rose to 4.5 percent—the highest unemployment has been in more than two years—as 276,000 jobs were lost in March and April.
