This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
The Real Reason The US Economy Simply Won't Grow: Lowest Worker Productivity In 22 Years
Just under two years ago, when Bank of America's economic team still produced meaningful commentary instead of blaming the growth slowdown on the snow (especially after it said not to blame the growth slowdown on the snow), it pointed out that the real reason the US recovery was aging (this was in the summer of 2013) was the tumble in worked productivity. This is what BofA said then: "what we show below is that, outside of the tech boom in the late 1990s, productivity tends to slow as business expansions mature. Our current 'expansion' is now thoroughly mature."
This time, Bank of America was absolutely right.
Of note, its commentary took place just as the Fed had launched QE3 in another desperate bid to if not boost the economy, then at least sends stocks to all time highs. It achieved the latter, as for the former, after peaking at 1.2%in Q3 2014, productivity has since crashed.
As the chart below shows, according to just released final data by the BLS, in Q1 labor productivity barely rose, growing 0.3% in Q1, following a -0.1% drop in the fourth quarter. Worse, on a sequential basis, productivity dipped by a -0.8% in Q1 (a 3.1% SAAR), after a -0.5% drop (-1.9% SAAR) in Q4.
This is the first sequential drop in nonfarm productivity in 22 years, or since 1993!
That, in a nutshell, is also the real reason the US economy refuses to grow no matter how many billions in liquidity the Fed stuffs into it.
As for the alleged 6.7% offsetting surge in unit labor costs, it may be going somewhere, but as we showed a month ago when showing the recent collapse in non-supervisory compensation, it sure isn't wages for 83% of the US population.
»
- 15579 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Why work harder if you are going to be paid less?
How can there be productivity when the US doesn't make any products now!?
Duh!
RECOVERY!!!!!
Recovery summer number... 6.
Thank you Dear Leader.
So we can't produce as much with 29.5 hr/wk jobs as we use to with the outdated 40 hr/wk jobs......go figure.
"The Real Reason The US Economy Simply Won't Grow: Lowest Worker Productivity In 22 Years" - What a crock! The real reason(s), amongst others, is extreme over indebtedness, more expensive and harder to find resources, high tax burdens that cripple start up businesses. Those are just three reasons and all are much more accurate than the one given by the author.
Yep, debt saturation, nuff said.
Also wonder about the negative effect of technology on productivity like everyone using their smart phones to browse Facebook and the internet instead of working.
Looking at the data, it would appear to be correlated withthe highest productivity in human history. This is productivity growth. Productivity gets higher every year, its just not been getting higher as quickly.
" There's never been a better time then now ... to be 'working' at a non-productive job. "
It's paradoxical!
FFS "That, in a nutshell, is also the real reason the US economy refuses to grow no matter how many billions in liquidity the Fed stuffs into it."
I just fuckin want to scream. The Fed does NOT pump money into productivity, they give free $$ to Banksters and Corp. Stock Buyback Schemes.
What do TBTF Banks produce? Fake, worthless paper "financial instruments" , and greasy spots on the sidewalks beneath their high-rise windows.
Absolutely. Start up business birth/death ratio is all you need to know about how fucked the economy is. Momentum and dollar printing only get you so far, and it has been an impressive extend and pretend run.
exi1edOne: Since you know about business birth/death ratios, you can probably point me to times series on default/debt ratios. I really need to find them and in 50 years of looking I've never seen one. Banks for sure have to keep them but they don't show up in any NBER numbers do they?
No one is going to share those numbers with you, and any info you do find is going to be made up bullshit. Mark to fantasy made a lot of debt quality issues get swept under the rug, and Uncle Sam is the counter party (Fed, Freddie, Fannie, etc.) to trillions. Has a person really defaulted if they continue to live in the house they stopped paying the mortgage on, but the bank doesn't foreclose on it? We are in the twilight zone for that kinda data, and I believe it is for a reason.
You have to look for indirect indices for a better view into the economy - what can't be hidden easily or overtly manipulate. Hence the small business B/D ratio is one of my favorites, since our economy is powered by mom and pops and not mega corps.
I'm fairly confident I'd been seeing graphs showing that while wages are flat, productivity continues to increase as workers work harder, longer hours for less. (Though I think I'd also seen that at least some of that increased productivity could be attributed more to new software and automation that makes it very easy for people to get a lot more done with less effort.)
I think productivity is going to be flat line for a while (in reality, we all know they'll goose the numbers as needed). As part of "Peak Everything" phase we're in we've maxed out consumer's credit and what they can do in a day. Everyone is frazzled an financially on edge. Less pay and more hours. How can you squeeze even one more drop out of an over worked, over burdened at home, no hope, laborer.
The real reason(s), amongst others, is extreme over indebtedness, more expensive and harder to find resources, high tax burdens that cripple start up businesses. Those are just three reasons and all are much more accurate than the one given by the author.
When you measure productivity at the input to the delivery pipe, there is no problem at all. With our machines we are more productive than ever and increasing at an exponential rate. At the limit, our productivity (all robot delivered) is infinite ... but no-one is working (so individual productivity goes to zero).
When you measure productivity at the output of the delivery pipe, there is a huge problem. No matter how much we put into the pipe, nothing comes out because of all the leaks.
Three other major leaks are: Interest loads, insurance loads and security loads.
The interest load comes from the banking parasites. They control the ability of traders to get their trading promises certified (create money).
The insurance load comes from demanding "protection money". The bankers won't certify a trader's promises without removing banker risk.
The security load comes from protection money as well. Traders pay an enormous amout of money to protect their ability to trade. Their threats come from those who they are paying for security ... governments. Just try getting on an airplane.
An interesting exercise: Measure the productivity of government at any level.
Todd Marshall
Plantersville, TX
There are two types of debt:
1) Debt that funds an increase in production capacity - think expanding a popular restaraunt with another 10 tables or another CNC lathe on the shop floor.
2) Debt that funds consumption - using a credit card to pay for groceries or government welfare/warfare borrowing.
The problem is #2 because it acts as a drag to future consumption. The future is now.
You don't remove a misunderstanding by bifurcation. You just create two misunderstandings.
There is only "one" kind of debt. That is where "an individual trader promises to deliver at some time and place".
There are "two" outcomes (and grades of combination) of this promise: (1) Delivery; (2) Default.
It's no more complicated than that.
The problem is #2 because it acts as a drag to future consumption. The future is now.
You trap yourself with your own example. Instances abound where people borrowed to eat while they created the invention that made them wealthy and enabled them to deliver on their trading promise. Saving to pay cash for a house is also stupid.
You are right that debt is debt - clawing into the present future earnings plus interest. What matters is WHY. Debt is a tool, and only the use that its put to makes it good or bad.
Your example proves my point though. If the person is borrowing money to eat, they will also need to borrow it to bring their great idea into being (prototyping, distribution, marketing, legal, etc.) Buying groceries with debt doesn't assist paying the debt off. While borrowing to bring an idea into a product that has the potential to generate revenue does. Buying a house is just dumb in any event today, but in the past it served as a base of wealth formation (equity). Now you are signing up to be a tax and maintenance donkey that is stuck with whatever jobs are within your tolerable commute radius.
Wow! Where to start. I wish I had time for a dissertation.
'Over indebtedness: This does not impede growth' - Hmmmm. If 70% of our economy is based on OUR consumption and we are too indebted to buy more then what is the purpose in increasing production? To stock the shelves for appearance sake?
'Harder to find resources: We are more efficient in our use of resources than at any other time in history. Further, we have an almost unbelievable ability to recycle our resources ... something that wasn't done at all as recently as 200 years ago. Our productivity is certainly not being limited by our resources or ability to find them.' - Efficiency and technology do not 'increase' resources nor do they make them less expensive. Technology itself is expensive. Below are some previous posts I wrote regarding this subject:
by r101958
on Thu, 04/21/2011 - 15:57
#1193737
Yes, and I have a bridge in Alaska that I will sell you. It is sometimes difficult to fathom how many of us revert back to the pie-in-the-sky predictions and 'feelings' that all will be solved by the next big find or the next great technology. I wish people would do their homework. I'll post again what I posted recently:
'Just a question.......does anybody here think that the TPTB will ever admit that there is a peak and decline of oil production? IMO no, they won't. Why? Because of the havic that it would cause in the markets and society in general. So, how do you keep things going? ....think extend and pretend, using somebody else's money. Has anybody here seen the patterns of this game over the last two years? Not enough energy to continue exponential growth to service debt etc. But, we can't address the real problems because if we do then we get chaos.'
So, in other words, the sheople will continue to be fed a diet of 'pie-in-the-sky' with a unhealthy side dish of 'Yes, we can' instead of any information based in reality.
r101958
Thu, 11/10/2011 - 13:43
Good post. Technology does help however, one might ask why conventional production has not increased in current active fields with all this new tech. Also, new tech increases EROEI. We might also ponder the following; if there is so much oil available, why are we drilling 5000 ft under the floor of the GOM? Why are we talking about drilling in Antarctica? I agree that leaving energy policy in the hands of the pols in D.C. is about as intelligent as......well, leaving the economy in the hands of the pols in D.C.
Thu, 03/08/2012 - 23:42 | 2238519 new r101958
No Augustus, those 'promoting' peak oil as you put it have given up trying to talk sense with fools that think that every natural resource on earth will increase and remain cheap just because our economy needs to grow. Shale oil is nowhere near as cheap as conventional crude. If availability of conventional crude was so limitless then why do we need to try to high pressure blast it out of sand and shale? Why do we need to drill 10000 ft below the bottom of the ocean? Peak oil does not mean we are out of oil it means we have reached the peak production of conventional crude (as opposed to 'all liquids' which is now the label they paste on alternative sources) and will see a slow decrease in production thereafter. If you really want to understand what more expensive energy does to the economy then you should first read up on EROEI and then take the 'Crash Course' by Chris Martenson. The reason you don't read that much about PO here anymore is because when we try to explain all this we get the same lame retorts and thoughtless arguments. Wake up! The world and its resources are finite. We have all been trained to think as narcissists - that the world will continue to provide us with whatever we need just as long as we want and we needn't be responsible stewards of our resources. Telling this to people with closed minds though is like...well....squeezing oil from a rock.
by r101958
on Fri, 04/08/2011 - 09:59
#1149618
'Oil will decrease in price when we see demand destruction again or perhaps temporarily when the dollar has a spike. All resources are finite and will get more scarce in this economy which survives and thrives on exponential growth. So, the alternatives are: Fewer and more expensive resources as in the current economic paradigm OR the current paradigm collapses and demand is destroyed in the process (2008 style). Nuff said.'
R101958: Efficiency and technology do not 'increase' resources nor do they make them less expensive. Technology itself is expensive. Below are some previous posts I wrote regarding this subject:
Then how do you categorize the case where technology discovers a catalyst that makes cracking oil 10x more efficient? How do you categorize technology that makes an IC engine run on 1/2 as much petroleum?
Wrong - just pure hypocrisy, the old pass-the-blame on the weak/poor strategy.
Productivity is a relative value - from the perspective of the capitalist employer it is about the yield, the bottom line, from the perspective of the tax racketeer - the same.
If you tell me now - in 2015, when wagers existence is basically complete ownership/slavery due to unlimited forced overtime or need to carry 2 or 3 jobs to make a living despite the technological advancements in work execution - that we are less productive than 20+ years ago you are just totally retarded, a dumb-ass or hypocrite and I'll punch you in the teeth with a stone.
What really happens despite this complete, efficient ownership wage-slavery system - the phenomenon is that we reached our top possible performance as living humans to provide continuously growth, to yield profit - we can't be squeezed more and beaten to spit blood to get *more productivity with less pay* for our cattle owners and tax racketeers.
What happens next it should be pretty obvious and easy to infer, as the signs to be observed are all around us but most of us miss the eyes to observe, the ears to listen, the education to recognize and sufficient mental strength to realize.
Headbanger,
You are right on target.
The US jobs are on the order of postal delivery which cannot be offshored or outsourced to third world. How can there be improvements in productivity of truck drivers or waitstaff?
How can there be improvements in productivity of truck drivers or waitstaff?
Both of those categories are being automated away as you speak. Productivity is going up in both categories at astonishing rates. At the limit, truck drivers and waitstaff are eliminated by robots and put out of work. Result? Those people's productivity goes from near infinite to zero in a single step.
Marshall Brain "gets it".
https://www.google.com/search?q=manna+marshall+brain+pdf&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
Wrong - just pure hypocrisy, the old pass-the-blame on the weak/poor strategy.
Productivity is a relative value - from the perspective of the capitalist employer it is about the yield, the bottom line, from the perspective of the tax racketeer - the same.
If you tell me now - in 2015, when wagers existence is basically complete ownership/slavery due to unlimited forced overtime or need to carry 2 or 3 jobs to make a living despite the technological advancements in work execution - that we are less productive than 20+ years ago you are just totally retarded, a dumb-ass or hypocrite and I'll punch you in the teeth with a stone.
What really happens despite this complete, efficient ownership wage-slavery system - the phenomenon is that we reached our top possible performance as living humans to provide continuously growth, to yield profit - we can't be squeezed more and beaten to spit blood to get *more productivity with less pay* for our cattle owners and tax racketeers.
What happens next it should be pretty obvious and easy to infer, as the signs to be observed are all around us but most of us miss the eyes to observe, the ears to listen, the education to recognize and sufficient mental strength to realize.
Hell..why work when you know the system is a lie, the gov is corrupted and corporations are making the calls for restrictive freedoms. I am done, living simply and low key. Barter and cash is key to living in the now.
FU you WH\corp!
Why bother working hard...some elite crony is going to take your money anyway
as an employer for most of my life, I actually always preached to "work smart, not hard". responses to that... varied
nevertheless, just from a mathematical point of view in many jobs working longer hours decreases average productivity, a point many socialists have often ridden to death
Thankfully Dear Leader Obama with ObamaCare has given us the 29.5 hour work week. No working long hours with Dear Leader in charge!!!
I can't see how 1350 employees working 29.5 hours is going to be more efficient than 1000 employees working 40 hours. More checking in and out, more paperwork and forms to file, more friction overall.
Agreed.
This should be at the end of my previous post: </s>
A socialist government in France ran on that idea, that reducing maximum hours would share out the (assumed fixed) amount of work to be done to more people, making life cooler all around. They have been running under that idiotic regime for over a decade at my last reckoning and things are not better there.
There is one, and only 1 reason why the economy is failing. The ponzi scheme that is fiat money creation is coming to an end. Debt saturation has reached it's limits, but the scheme doesn't end when borrowing flatlines or decreases. The scheme ALWAYS requires GREATER borrowing. If the existing debts aren't serviced by new borrowing, they are serviced by leaching from the existing "money" supply. Since the scheme absolutely favors the wealthy and connected, who are largely disconnected from the economy, it is the economy that will service the existing debt. The ONLY other choices in the current system are barter, or default.
Which leads to the current and seemingly inexplicable sell-off in PM futures. Since the ponzi scheme has run it's course, there must be a reset of some sort ready and waiting so that TPTB don't lose complete control of the masses. I predict we will see a substantial devaluation of PM's (real money), bankruptcies in the mining majors, and a subsequent bailing out and aquisition of most of the majors by the central banks. Only after the banksters have acquired most of the PM's in the ground will we see a sound money system return, with the top .0001% owning practically all present and future assets, and the rest of the world returning to serfdom, as has been the case throughout recorded history.
The ponzi scheme that is fiat money creation is coming to an end.
And this so-called "fiat money creation" will be replaced by what?
At the end of WWII, a far far bigger war than vietnam which dwarfed our recent Iraq/Afghanistan adventures, the US GDP/debt ratio was around 1. But the debt was paid down pretty well in the following few decades. So it is possible to exit from high debt. I dont see it happening now only for lack of will and excess of corruption. It is a different country now with different values and ethics.
USD debt has NEVER been paid down in the last 100 years. The couple decades following WWII saw impressive GDP growth, fueled by the necessary rebuilding of Europe and Asia, and subsequently, the debt to GDP ratio did drop substantially. The USD was also linked to gold, and therefore gold could be accepted as settlement for USD debts. Since the 70's, only USD's can settle USD debts, and since the ONLY way USD's come into existence is through debt creation, it is mathematically IMPOSSIBLE to pay off USD debt within the present system, barring some agreed upon swap of debt for assets at the central bank level.
Just a bit of expansion on my theory that miners will be either nationalised or aquired by the central banks (practically the same thing in our present system).
The major PM mining companies are all Western companies. The Chinese are not going to be able to aquire these companies, and in the future will not be able to aquire the gold that these companies own or produce. Hence we have the recent news that China has established a $60 billion fund to do what? To build and aquire mining projects in the East. Why would China need to do this? Because they see the inevitable withdrawal of cheap PM's from the markets that they are able to access.
Get your PM's while you can, because in time they will not be available to you.
Working longer hours would certainly do nothing for me. We should first look at how we can make the workplace more effecient so that I'm actually working the majority of my hours instead of looking at ZH to cover for the fact that I don't have enough to do, or my projects are constantly bottlenecked by others.
Elite crony as in the government, yes. The government makes it close to not worth working. Worth a LOT more (cash) to not work for many.
no I was thinking some civic minded Clinton Slush Fund Donor
productivity can be impacted by the falling demand
you work the same and produce the same amount but due to weaker demand your productivity falls down
Winner.... In the engineering business all most all shops that make things for us are working at far less capacity. The floor worker is the first to go and the office folks last.
Used to be the other way around, and that wasn't too long ago.
I must be stoopid, because I thought the reasons why the eCONomy refuses to grow had something to do with the crushing debt, globalization, and overwhelming immigration. Stoopid, stoopid brain of mine.
Surely that's just your Demotivators artwork talking.
Dr
You forgot the over taxed.......................to add to your list
(I guess the crushing debt does cover it)
Stoopid, Stoopid brain of mine
immigration alone actually makes an economy grow. a "growth above all" supporter is usually also a supporter of immigration for this exact reason
An overwhelming flow of immigrants drags on the system as there are more people who rely on government to cover their needs. They aren't paying taxes, and much of their income is being sent back across the border. Those who support the "growth above all"support a never ending flow of immigrants because it drives down the cost of labor, and it gives them a bigger pool of people to take advantage of.
depends. depends on where, and who. the Polish immigrants to the UK, for example, are something completely different from the example you are thinking about
they are already educated, at foreign expenses, and pay a lot of contribution tax from which they might or might not profit, depending from the cases, while often doing jobs that were not filled by locals
or take the 100'000 university-educated Germans that at the peak of that migration left for the US every year
it's a battle of statistical numbers, with varied results. to this, an old joke: "One Scot emigrated to London and by that he raised the average IQ of both countries"
Oh, I thought this was an article about U.S growth.... my bad.
point taken, but I have to listen often to many US economists that don't care and continue to say that every kind of immigration is good, because it raises their favourite number: GDP
"It all started with that Einstein fellow. Once he moved in there were no genius jobs left in the US and it's all downhill from there."
- Doug Stanhope
Legal regulated immigration.
Thank you for finally putting up an article about productivity. I've been saying it for months now to, basically, a collective yawn. The economy is NOT healthy (as if anyone here needed me to point that out).
And, I'll add: Since Before LehmanTM
Anyone notice how often that's coming up lately?
yes! I thought I was the only one who noticed that "since Lehman" is becoming more and more common a phrase
NoDebt
Low demand.....................low productivity
Productivity is a funny number because so many things affect it. But with all the job cuts (a third of our adult population isn't even in the labor force) you would think productivity would be booming for those remaining employed. But you're right, when demand goes slack, productivity tanks and that's gotta be a major contributor here.
' during the war'
Ohhh..., thats it!
Don’t sweat it fellas, jobs are just around the corner. Boehner is all-in on ObamaTrade. Not THAT’s a Spicy Meatball!
The awesome thing is, no one knows what's in it. It's a license for the administration to do what it feels in yet another aspect of international relations. Given Obama's track record so far, that's very likely to be a bad thing for liberty here and abroad.
FUCK YOU, WORKERS!!!! BASTARDS!!!!!!!!!!!
We always knew it was their fault, didn't we?
If we all stopped working and looking for jobs there were be 0% unemployment.
If we all stopped working and looking for jobs there were be 0% unemployment.
You can say that again...
give the bottom 90% the $3.6 Trillion the Fed printed, and it would have been spent, spurring the economy. Give greedy bankers 3.6 Trillion, they spend a fraction of that. on super expensive cars, homes, yachts, etc......ie, stuff the US does not make. well done.
if only they really spent it...what they do is buy the house you defaulted on....then make you pay rent. Or take it offshore ....to invest in Chinese hyper stocks or some other ponzi scheme. Many of the uber rich are like buffet...they spend little and pump up markets...which do all most nothing. Where is the wealth creation...with a bubble stock market and hyper inflated houses?
Bingo. I was wondering how far down the list I was going to have to go to find the real answer. The reason the economy sucks is beacause all the cash is being concentrated at the top. Main street is starving. Productivity, yeah, sure, blame it on the working stiff.
Dumb comment, it would have been spent on one time goods, on Iphones, samsung TVs, and a big walmart run. I would have quickly reverted right back into the black hole, creating nothing. Dont get me wrong it would have been much better to do this than give it straight to the banks, but this is what was done.
Simply a reflection of CEO pay to actually producing something other than company debt.
Joke of the Day from Reuters
"
IMF warns U.S. Federal Reserve should delay rate hike until 2016"Bullcrap. I spent 8 years calling Republicans liars. Tax cuts do NOT create jobs in the United States. Confirmation came from a 100% unexpected source, my writer critique group. An Indian American woman was writing a novel about three generations of her family. In one of the draft chapters we critiqued, she had one of her family characters state the U.S. jobs that have gone offshore to Bangalore, India. Then she put her hand to her mouth and said "Oh, maybe I shouldn't have told you Americans that." I thought "Oh, yes, I already knew that. Thanks for confirmation." Who else but INDIAN Americans who travel regularly to India would know the size of the tech campuses in Bangalore?
the democrats have been in control for 6 years.... and for decades in the major cities...how did that work out for the average guy? The banks own the system and the various political players... India is a socialist hell hole of corrupt...kind of like Washington.
You mean the hours I spend reading Zero Hedge and surfing for porn isn't adding to productivity? GTFO.
I always counted them.
I fine myself for every hour I spend here, and give it to charity, and feel foolish for the whole package, which of course I deserve to
Your favorite charity?
He means the ECB.
The Clinton "Foundation".
nope, I believe in cutting the middleman. Love Thy Neighbour. First, get to know, then try to help, preferrably by "learning how to fish"
Neither Draghi nor Chelsea would need my help, would they?
Aren't all those H1-B Visa recipients getting the job done ?
Daddy 'luciferian' Bush must be having a perpetual hard on, the NWO is coming full blown into reality for us to see.....yay. What a time to be living on planet earth.
Play that we-vs-they game much?
Get your head outta yer butt: there is NO DIFFERENCE between Bush, Clinton, and Obama.
The US TRAITOR CORPORATIONS had a huge cycle of productivity gains where THE WORKER GOT NO PART! Game over, you fking arsewhole traitors.
Too many executives and upper management on too high wages.
How can you slash your workforce to do the same amount of work, and productivity less? Even with falling demand, something is amis.
Yep, they should have slashed most of the execs, cut their pays, and increased productivity.
92 million people are out of the job market - thanks Obama!
Don't worry the PTT is totally going to happen and drive down the cost of the things our masses of underemployed unemployed and inactive citizens like to buy.
Hey, the average gov't worker works about 30 minutes a day. That's what every one of my friends in DC says. That's why I left that fucking disgusting, worthless place.
Measure that into your productivity charts. The other day, a friend of mine who is a nurse with experience got offered a job for 13 an hour. She already has a job that pays better than that but wants to move to a new place. That is fucking ridiculous lowballing and pretty much an insult. And you wonder why people aren't spending? Fucking Fed.
When it comes to .gov workers, 30 minutes a day is more than enough to do their share of damage. They all need a LONG vacation for our sake.
Unpaid forced 18 month sabbaticals for 25% of all federal permajob workers, drawn from a hat each year on december 31st, seems like a fair policy. A little income insecurity, and/or real world exposure might concentrate their entitled butts and remind them what's what.
My neighbor holds a PhD. in fisheries sciences. She has 15 years of work experience. She gets paid $20.00 per hour working in her field. No benefits.
'merika!
Ive seen these restructuring of the workplace on a few occassions.
Sack half the workers, halve the output, keep the same management numbers. Management/execs always protect themselves well.
well, I'll be, trillions in cheap borrowed money, and it hasn't produced any productivity.
Now, i'm no big wig banker or economist, but i thought all that hot money was supposed to be used for updating equipment and facilities. Didn't some former FED director say that this QE business was going to lower rates, and that the lower rates would result in business "INVESTMENTs" that would lead to growth?
I'm truly befuddled.
Robots and human workers are both showing their age.New workers show even less enthusiasm.
Symptom of a corrupt currency.
Now that the fast food workers are going to get $15/hour I bet their productivity doubles too - right?
How the heck do they measure "productivity"? Some nerdy guy with a clipboard, pocket protector, and a stopwatch looking over the shoulder of each worker?
If it is measured on a macro basis, as it obviously must be, then the decline of productivity is just another symptom, not a cause.
For each assembly line worker, or at least the lucky ones, now manning an expresso machine as the local Starbucks, they have regressed from working with a huge assumbly line that cost maybe $100,000,000 to build, to working on a $100 coffee machine. Putting aside for the moment whether the words "Starbucks" and "productivity" should be used in the same paragraph, when your workers stop using large amounts of capital goods and start using essentially nothing but their two bare hands on the job, productivity goes down. The deline in productivity is not what is destroying our economy. It is a consequence of the massive loss of capital intensive manufacturing jobs.
I last had a "job" 11 years ago. I had worked there over 6 years when I left. I reported to the CEO/CFO of a 45-person creative agency. That guy was so dumb, he thought "Productivity" was the same thing as "Billable Hours/Total Hours Worked." He told me he needed me to have 80% billable hours, minimum (He called it "80% Productivity"). Since I made the budgets for my projects, and I filled out my own time sheets, that wasn't very hard to do, now was it. He was astonished by my consistent, invariable 85% "Productivity."
It may be due to the fact that most new jobs or job openings are being filled by foreign workers. Low lever jobs by hispanics, higher level jobs by asians and indians on the H1B visa program.
They just are not as productive as a good old American worker, in many cases. But they do cost less, and that's all that matters to Wall Street.
The 'productivity' metric is second only to the BLS 'unemployment' number, in total worthlessness.
Capitalism inherently seeks efficiency...ergo the cost of LABOR will inexorably be driven to zero....the new smart industrial revolution....good to be the 1%.....the fucking jungle for the majority of striving sheep....more bread and interwebs powered smartphone circuses....nothing new under the sun motherfuckers
I do the work of 8 people- But hey, keep on slashing and piling on more shit work for me to do. Paying skilled people to do clerical shit instead of paying a clerical employee and freeing up the skilled to do the stuff they'r skilled at. Thats Management 101
go to the end of the line from kildabeast
The stingy middle class is restricting GDP (another great stat). Blame them. Then replace a lot of workers with robots. Voila. What a goat rodeo. And the worst thing is our tax dollars are paying for it and all its clowns. Barf.
I'd blame the 'super whizzo'
Affordable Care Act. Why work for bloodsuckerz when you EITHER get shafted for crappy insurance, OR pay a fukking FINE FFS.
How dense are American peeps? If the name on the law bill has something snazzy like the ACA, or even 'the Patriot Act' or maybe the 'Freedom bill' - BE SCARED.
Understand that it means the opposite.
Grow up and kill your bloodsucking "leaders".
yas means I gots ta actually work - F dat, rascist bigot
Productivity may have been a meaningful economic measurement 35 years ago, but only for a short time. You can't increase productivity and technology and employment at the same time. The jobs are long gone. All that productivity will do now is further reduce what little employment is left.
the jobs are reserved for the illegal democrap voters er ima grants, now go to the back of the line stupid Americians
Yes, businesses have been forced to hire more people to deal with more intrusive and costly government regulation and insurance, legal and banking overhead.
The parasites are killing the host.
However the biggest loss to increased productivity is that there are no more gains from labor arbitrage (Apple making iPhones in China and then charging US wages in the US market). All of that labor savings from importing cheap labor stuff, instead of making it here shows up as increased productivity (or did you not know?). Fewer companies are moving their manufacturing out of the US and China is becoming more expensive.
Oh, wait Disney fired their US IT staff and hired instead foreign labor and made the US staff train them. This will get them improved productivity. (Boycotting Disney forever, now ... they won't care about me ... but everyone should boycott them)
Is the BLS implying I read ZH while at work? Damn that NSA.
I am thinking that we should really be measuring banker, lawyer, insurer and government worker productivity. Manufacturing productivity means nothing to the US.
And, just to be clear, even with declining productivity:
1. Obumbdumb wants us to bring more people into the US
2. LeGarde wants us to pay people more
What is wrong with this picture?
Adding more government jobs is a surefire way to squash aggregate productivity....
"They pretend to pay us .... we pretend to work !" .... Gulag Tractor Works
This Ponzi has a lot of life .... before, we get to Weimar/Zimbabwe !
but meanwhile agggregate wealth is growing. what these charts prove is that human labor has not improved in terms of productivity. but productivity overall is improving dramatically. so when a burger flipper gets a raise for doing the same job they have always done, that hurts productivity. an offset is the more efficient preparation and distribution. (automatic delivery systems soon) but since there is no labor involved, or the labor has been fully automated (at the same rate of efficiency lets say) we dont count it any more. what this proves is that the service industry (the iindustry with the greatest contribution to human labor) is less efficient. that has to do with wage gains.i am not worred about productivity, i am more worried about a wealth distribution system for this new mroe highly productive economic model.
Yes...the wealth (non) distribution system has been allowed to maintain the same formula that has been in place since the Industrial Revolution. We are now in a society where productivity increases are made by machines and software....not directly by humans. This is so obvious it begs the question: why is this not taken into account in wealth distribution??? I think the answer is fairly obvious. What to do about this is not so obvious. There needs to be a very public discussion in the media and at the highest levels of government both in NA and Europe (the only places where such discussion is remotely possible) re: Exploring New Models of Wealth Distribution in the 21st Century. You now have the title of the symposium - someone please go organise it. And remember, you heard it here first on ZH and it was proposed by yours truly, the seeker of aphids.....
The economy is shrinking and that is pretty much the whole problem with employment...
http://www.globaldeflationnews.com/u-s-deflationary-evidence-continues-t...
Yes, SHRINKING. American economy "productive"?? They're joking...
There is a smaller and smaller portion of the G-7 workforce which has discretionary income to spend. They never lost their jobs during 2008-2009, never had their salaries or hours cut, and now have all the toys and boats, RVs and cell phones. They might be your neighbours. They don't have to be "banksters" to be rich. Just have to be in some way connected to government, be it through access to natural resources, union membership, overpaid technical skills, government employment or whatever...
They are hogging most of the jobs and most of the salary available in this economy.
The majority, a growing majority, don't have "careers", have no savings left and are lucky to find JOBS.
There is, potentially, some upside to this shituation. Was Joplin correct in her lyric 'Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose?' I think we'll see pretty soon.
Actually it was written by Khris Kristofferson and murdered by Janis Joplin.
of course because the production of goods and services is decreasing, because there is no demand, because people don't have a job or low paid job, because there is no recovery, because there is no growth, because QE doesn't create growth, because Bernanke is a liar because he is a bankster !
AS .gov expands, productivity goes down. .Gov has been doing a lot of the hiring for jobs 'created' since 2007. Here in SC, I speak with small business owners non-stop. They tell me they can't find good quality labor at the going (less than $15/hour) rates. Then they tell me health insurance premium increases are killing them. I note both of these factors in my 3 small businesses, primarily on the insurance cost increase side. Building construction continues here, both residential and commericial. My contractor has 12 projects right now, up from 6 in 2010. I think this state is benefitting from being relatively attractive on real estate pricing and certainly taxes/regulation. In other words, the NE and Midwest are probably REALLY hurting, and as those folks seek locations where their buck goes the furthest, SC comes up a winner. This is also consistent with why we left NYC. Our national ship is taking on water and listing. The trick is to find something that floats, and a good dry perch to stand on (with direct, immediate access to the water) until the ship sinks.
There is no "labour shortage" ANYWHERE. Though perhaps there are lazy and pampered employers who refuse to do the legwork, interviewing, training...
There is an excess of government spending on social programs, subsidies, make-work, college loans and grants, government employment and other factors keeping people from having to compete for the few available jobs....
Close all the manufacturing plants, force everyone to take half wages to work as stock boys as Walmart, and guess what, productivity numbers fall. Surprize, surprize.
BOA is right. All of those lazy bastards who worked at factories that were closed and moved to China now just sit around and produce nothing. They are the drag on the economy and should be punished for their laziness.
Productivity will pick up when the robots take over.
Lowest worker productivity? How about Lowest number of workers? I'll bet that's closer.
As an aside. Where I am employed, they have reduced the number from approx 100 to 8. By doing that they tell us we are more productive! That's all good and dandy until you see the disrepair of their buildings and equipment. This a a Fortune 500 company that boasts a 19% increase in profit in 2014 with little to no increase in customers. We don't have the time to make customers happy. Our only requirement is to make numbers they dream up. Their buildings are literally crumbling. No money for maintenance and cleaning. Their fleet of vehicles are 1995 - 2002 vintage. They now only do breakdown maintenance. You can tell when you see vehicles with the entire front rusted out. They have completely given up on maintaining their inventory as they no longer have the resources to monitor it and the employees left don't have time to fool with it. All employees are on the road all day going from one fire to the next. Management personnel no longer have to report to an office,,, their home is their office. It's the gig of the century.
From what I can determine this is nationwide and the rot is in all businesses. Cleanliness and an orderly store with courteous clerks and reasonable products are a time gone by. The businesses cry to Mr. Government, " We don't have any customers" when their selection of product is small and limited to one or maybe two items, otherwise they snarl "Go on Line" only to then complain that the online retailers are killing them. Restaurants are a complete joke. Dirty, Smelly, lousy food and drink, customers with a third world dress code and pissed off college grads as waiters and waitresses.
We have been on the downhill and "Cheaper" slide since the advent of self-service gas stations. We spend $700 on POS trash phones that don't last more than 4-5 years and reports to the NSA your location and your every conversation, spoken or text,,, TV's that record your conversations at home ( and probably video) and delivered to a third party, likely the NSA,,, auto's that report every infraction the manufacture can dream up and some are reporting to gestapo,,, hell, you can't even buy a pizza without giving your life history,,, they want your phone number when you buy a bottle of insecticide and have the temerity to pay in cash,,, police are on a citizen killing spree,,, the military is out west practicing martial governance and civilian infiltration technique,,, men are being arrested for manspreading in NYC,,, arrest warrants or being served on some Mississippi folks that hurrahed their offspring at a graduation ceremony,,, and on and on.
There is no way in hell this can continue for any length of time. Worker productivity is the least of our problems.
had to google 'manspreading'... wow... insane
" this is nationwide and the rot is in all businesses"
And short-term incentivization programs are the reason. Make your profit numbers this year and you're a hero. Bonuses all round, share price goes up. Meanwhile the medium to long term health of the business is crippled by lack of maintenance, training, R&D etc. Channels get stuffed, quality goes down. It's the American Way and it's spread to much of the rest of the world.
Certainly expect productivity to be low with the manufacturing job shipped overseas.
Blame the worker.
I guess it's true as the shirt hits the furnace the workers and consumers are going to get blamed first.
All statistical measures are corrupt now so why would I believe this? But I echo the sentiment that REAL wages adjusted for REAL inflation are at their lowest in more than 22 years, and clearly the country is now run by banksters for banksters, so if real production has fallen we do not need to be economic geniuses to figure out why.
Well letting go of the more expensive higher skilled workers has some drawbacks. If they try to hire you back demand much more.
Jah knows I'm doing my part. The motto during President Inequality's regime is "you pretend to pay us, so we pretend to work"
Jah knows I'm doing my part. The motto during President Inequality's regime is "you pretend to pay us, so we pretend to work"
Measuring labor productivity at a macro level is extraordinarily difficult. In the case of America manufacturing jobs have been replaced by low level service jobs like baristas and waiters. Even when statisticians try to correct for such factors the results are very unreliable.