NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The pace of U.S. productivity growth in the second quarter was a little faster than initially thought, the government said Friday, though still much lower than the first quarter's red-hot pace.

The Labor Department said it revised its reading of U.S. productivity -- a key measure of worker output per hour -- in the second quarter to a 1.5 percent annual growth rate, compared with an initial estimate of 1.1-percent growth.

Economists, on average, expected the Labor Department to keep its reading unchanged at 1.1 percent, following the first quarter's 8.6 percent rate, according to Briefing.com.

It was the worst quarter for productivity since a 0.1 percent drop in the second quarter of 2001, but productivity was still 4.8 percent higher than it was a year ago.

Total output dropped to 0.5 percent growth from 6.2 percent growth in the quarter. The number of hours worked fell 0.7 percent after falling 2.2 percent in the first quarter.

Unit labor costs, a measure of wage inflation, rose 2.4 percent after falling 4.6 percent in the first quarter.

The data had little impact on U.S. stock market futures, which traded lower, pointing to a negative opening on Wall Street, following a separate Labor Department report showing weekly jobless claims stayed above a benchmark level for the second straight week. Treasury bond prices were mostly higher.

The jobless claims report helped point out the downside of productivity growth -- it's come at the expense of the labor market, as companies have learned to get more production out of fewer workers.