Regarding the outlook, it is likely to increase from about 0 percent and become slightly positive, reflecting developments in energy prices. Thereafter, it is expected to increase toward 2 percent as the aggregate supply and demand balance (the output gap) improves and medium- to long-term inflation expectations rise.
The extent to which businesses have succeeded in boosting output with fewer labor hours and minimal capital investment over the past two years points up the possibility that a considerable stock of inefficiencies accumulated in the boom years and that this stock is still being worked off. Finally, yet another hypothesis stresses a more-lasting increase in the growth of output per hour.