US productivity up 3.1 percent in third quarter

The productivity figure was unchanged from an initial estimate a month ago while the 0.7 percent rise in unit labor costs was slightly higher than an initial estimate of a 0.3 percent gain.

Economists are forecasting that productivity will return to the anemic gains seen over the past nine years.

Since 2007, annual productivity increases have averaged just 1.3 percent.

The revised estimates for productivity and output follow the government's revisions to the gross domestic product, the economy's total output of goods and services, last week.