WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Productivity in the U.S. non-farm business sector grew at an annual rate of 8.1 percent in the third quarter of 2009, the biggest quarterly gain in six years, the labor department reported on Thursday.

    The third-quarter reading for productivity, the amount of output per hour of work, followed a 6.9 percent surge in the second quarter. By contrast, productivity for all of 2008 grew by only 1.8 percent.

    Employers' unit labor costs, or costs of wages and benefits for each unit of output, decreased at an annual rate of 2.5 percent.

    The U.S. economy rose 2.8 percent in the third quarter after four consecutive quarters of contraction, a strong signal that the worst recession since the Great Depression has ended.

    Productivity is considered the key ingredient needed for raising living standards because it allows companies to pay their workers more without having to raise the price of their products, which fuels inflation.