Productivity Is Up. But Expecting It to Continue May Be a 'Tenuous Proposition'

What You Need to Know

• A report this week tallied a 0.4% increase in productivity during Q2, after recording a 0.5% drop during Q1. It also found that 54% of firms had lawyers billing more hours relative to Q2 2023.
• The long-term trend has been toward mitigating productivity losses, and even with very strong fundamentals, the productivity boost was only modest.
• 'If we see a softening in countercyclical demand, if corporate work starts to cool off, that could reverse very quickly,' one analyst said, referring to the productivity increase.