Businesses struggled to squeeze much more out of their workers last year.

A downward revision to fourth-quarter productivity lowered the gain for all of 2013 to just 0.5%, the Labor Department said Thursday. The small increase ties with 2011 for the weakest annual improvement since 1993.

Labor productivity, or output per hour, strengthened early in the economic recovery as businesses grew more efficient. The measure increased 3.1% in 2009 and 3.3% in 2010, to mark the best annual improvement since 2003. But gains have slowed considerably since, measuring 0.5% in 2011 and 1.5% in 2012.

The recent weakness was most pronounced in nondurable manufacturing, a sector that includes the processing of food, chemicals and petroleum, as well as textile and paper production. Sector productivity slipped 0.1% last year because output improvements were more than offset by increased hours worked.

The easing of productivity is a bit of a double-edged sword. The weak gains hold back the economy’s potential to grow. But it also could signal that businesses are finding it more difficult to meet demand with their existing workforce and equipment.

If companies can’t squeeze more out of current workers, they might need to ramp up hiring and capital investment.

(Source: Wall Street Journal)

68,000

Boeing Co., following other U.S. companies moving away from traditional pension plans, said Thursday that it would freeze the pension benefits of more than 68,000 nonunion employees, and will shift those workers to 401(k) retirement-savings plans, starting in 2016.

(Source: Wall Street Journal)

107

A federal probe into why General Motors Co. took nearly 10 years to recall cars with a potentially deadly defect heated up on Wednesday as safety regulators demanded the auto maker answer 107 questions on its handling of a faulty ignition switch.

(Source: Wall Street Journal)

$3.9 trillion

U.S. President Barack Obama proposed a $3.9 trillion budget for the year beginning Oct. 1 that was largely absent of lofty new policy goals.

(Source: Wall Street Journal)

$2.6 billion

Nine founders of four of the world’s largest private-equity firms together collected more than $2.6 billion last year through dividends and other payouts—more than twice as much as they made the year before. 

(Source: Wall Street Journal)

$470 million

In case you missed it, Mt. Gox, once the dominant exchange for bitcoin trading, on Friday said more than $470 million of the virtual currency vanished from its digital coffers. The recent loss is forcing U.S. regulators to confront burgeoning questions about whether their oversight extends to the fledgling virtual currency.

(Source: Wall Street Journal)

$20.4 Billion

GDF Suez wrote down $20.4 billion in assets, a glaring example of how Europe’s large-scale power-generation industry has been crippled by wind and solar electricity.

(Source: Wall Street Journal)

The Bloomberg U.S. Financial Conditions Index, which is an overall gauge of the health of the financial and credit markets, reached an all-time high in late 2013 (the index started in 1994). This is a positive sign that financial markets have returned to solid ground after the shock of the financial crisis. Stable financial conditions help support economic growth.

(Source: Bloomberg)

715

NASA scientists announced Wednesday the discovery of 715 new planets around distant stars, including four alien worlds roughly the size of Earth that might be the proper temperature for liquid water to form and, therefore, potentially suitable for life.

(Source: Wall Street Journal)

40%

The rate of obesity in preschool-age children in the U.S. dropped about 40% over the past decade, according to data from a comprehensive federal survey published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association—the latest sign that attempts to help parents improve children’s diets and exercise habits might be starting to have an effect.

(Source: Wall Street Journal)