Row Faster!

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released its revised Q3 2008 productivity report. According to the report, worker productivity increased during the third quarter. Sounds like a good thing, doesn’t it?

If you look a little more closely at the numbers, you’ll realize it’s not all it seems.

Productivity is a ratio consisting of output produced to hours worked. The way we want productivity to increase is to make more output and hold hours worked constant. That would be one way to improve the ratio.

The other way to improve this (or any) ratio is to decrease the denominator, which is exactly what’s happened in the latest productivity increase: the number of hours worked by the labor force declined in Q3. This decrease is due to activities like forced furloughs and shortening of the work week to avoid layoffs.

Once again, the American worker learns to do more with less. In this case, it’s with less time to do the same amount of work. So grab and oar and row faster!