Do not make the mistake of thinking that because my conclusion is the same as another person's that my reasoning is the same
Not like I intended this to be a series or anything, but if you start looking at this you can find snowjobs creating six foot drifts.
The increase in productivity -- the amount an employee produces per hour of work -- reported by the Labor Department on Wednesday was even stronger than the 8.1 percent pace initially estimated for the July-to-September quarter a month ago and was up from a 7 percent growth rate posted in the second quarter of this year.
The third quarter was prior to the WONderful employment stats of the past few months. Basically, this says people were worked even harder than we thought. Proof?
More hours…but not more workers. Remember, we're talking third quarter here.
CAN pay workers more…but when was the last labor negotiation you heard of that didn't call for givebacks? Isn't that a significant method of achieving reportable productivity gains?
Of course,
I ask again: How well does The Economy track with the quality of life around these parts?
Posted by P6 at December 3, 2003 12:37 PM | Trackback URL: http://www.prometheus6.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2412A question I have regarding those productivity numbers before I make a judgment is how many of them reflect salaried worker hours vs. hourly worker hours.
If they are salaried worker-hours, then clearly people are being worked harder to benefit the bottom line.
If we're dealing with hourly worker-hours, however, I can see many of those workers being quite happy with an increase that leads to a direct increase in salary, particularly if it pushes them into overtime. Especially since many manufacturing workers simply get put on unpaid leave when manufacturing slows down, and get paid nothing.
It seems with the spiraling costs of healthcare, productivity will get more and more important, due to the high fixed costs of adding additional full-time workers. Perhaps national healthcare is a better solution than it first appears.
I know a couple of people who were put on part time schedules (given the choice of 25 hour weeks or no-hour weeks) who are back up to full time employment.
For the -unemployment- rates, no, this isn't much news one way or the other. For the -underemployment- rates (your quality of life issue) this is great news.
Jason:
National health care is the only solution. Folks will scream on me for saying that, but the fact is what we have now isn't working.
Phelps:
You and Jason are right that this helps some folks. A lot of people count on overtime to make ends meet. Which is one more reason Bush's proposal to redefine a sigificant chunk of the population as exempt is a Bad Thing.
You and Jason are right that this helps some folks. A lot of people count on overtime to make ends meet. Which is one more reason Bush's proposal to redefine a sigificant chunk of the population as exempt is a Bad Thing.
I'm not losing any sleep over it. I qualify in the "could be redifined" section, but I won't be. My employer knows better. If they don't, I'll move about 100 feet up or down to another firm in the same building that does know.
Not having salable skills must suck. I haven't had to deal with that since I was 19.