‘85 Business Output Down 0.2%

U.S. business productivity dropped at an annual rate of 3.1% in the last quarter of 1985, the government reported today, pushing the figure for all of 1985 into a 0.2% decline, the first since the 1982 recession.

Releasing revised figures based on more complete data, the Labor Department said the fourth-quarter decline, the first since the last quarter of 1984 and the largest in four years, was much worse than the 1.8% drop estimated earlier by the government.