MEMO: WORKER PRODUCTIVITY GAINS IN 2000

Despite a sharp slowdown in the final quarter of 2000, Americans' productivity for all of last year posted the best gain since 1983, capping a remarkable five-year stretch of growth in this important indicator of rising living standards.

Worker productivity -- the amount of goods and services produced for each hour worked -- rose at an annual rate of 2.4 percent in the last three months of 2000 as the nation's economic growth lagged, the Labor Department reported Wednesday. That was slower than a 3 percent growth rate in the previous quarter, but still a healthy gain, economists said.

For all of 2000, productivity surged 4.3 percent, the best showing since a 4.5 percent gain in 1983.