To give a closer estimate, it is necessary to correct for productivity increase during the same period.
According to this view, wages increased at a rate lower than productivity increases.
Most of the companies appear to believe that further productivity increases were possible in the audit.
Ms. Brown credits the education program for the productivity increase.
But workers say any productivity increases are hurting them and the quality of their work.
However, the benefits from this productivity increase don't seem to have reached normal working people.
The annual rate of productivity increase for 2006, 1.6 percent, was the lowest since 1997.
But the remarkable productivity increases of the last three years are in fact solid.
But from 2000 to 2003, the top seven sectors accounted for only 75 percent of the productivity increase.
People close to the budget agency suggest that the productivity increase will be significant, but not overwhelming.