Hardwood dimension and flooring industry

Productivity growth in the hardwood dimension and flooring industry averaged percent annually Small firms dominate the industry. Production tends to be labor intensive, with new technology being slow to disperse throughout the industry. The industry also experienced many changes in the demand for its products as consumer preferences changed. As a result, manufacturing efficiency often became expendable, exchanged for greater flexibility in production, in order to produce the largest range of products. Output over the period realized zero net growth, and employee hours fell by percent annually.
Productivity declined nine times, and output dropped eight times, during the period. The productivity trends can be divided into two subperiods As shown in table, during, productivity output per employee hour fell percent per year. The hardwood dimension and flooring industry felt the effects of the recession, with output, hours, and productivity all declining. The second subperiod, was more positive, with industry output and productivity moving upward in response to growth in demand and some industry consolidation. The productivity indexes developed for the hardwood dimension and flooring industry represent the change over time in the ratio of the weighted outputs of the industrys products to employee hours. The output indexes are developed using a deflated value technique.
Value of shipments data for the various product classes within the industry are converted to a constant dollar basis using BLS producer price indexes. Indexes of constant dollar values are combined with fixed period employee hour weights to derive an industry output index. This index is adjusted for industry coverage and the net change in inventories. The result is an index of industry production. Annual output indexes are benchmarked to more comprehensive data available every years in the Census of Manufactures. A more complete description of the methodology used to construct these measures is contained, in the appendix.