2 fascinating graphs i saw via fark... [Politics/Religion]

[Clive]

Undoubtedly there are people working harder, I'm not saying thats a lie - particularly in the 2000-2002 years, the bubble burst and some people were laid off.  Those that stayed had to pick up the slack, and willingly did so to keep their jobs.  I'm sure we even have people working harder because of increased workloads that their company has not kept pace with workforce-wise.  All of this is going on, just not at a significant enough rate to explain the sizable productivity gains.  It has been a generally accepted position for many years that our increasing productivity is due in large part to working smarter (automation, technology, etc.) and less so because we're working harder.

Not to quibble here, and I certainly hate to expose some anti-corporation streak, but ... those who stay when belts are tightened pick up added job duties and don't receive added compensation.  When the lean times got a little fatter, companies did not generally swell their workforce back up to pre-lean levels.  Not while workers were still showing up and working 1.5 jobs for 1.0 pay, no matter how much they may bitch about it.  I've heard that story firsthand countless times from my many fake Internet friends.

[stroh]

My cat's breath smells like cat food.

[Blader]

There have been tremendous increases in copulation efficiencies and economies of scale in the agricultural sector owing to technological advances, but for unknown reasons, these have not translated well into the human sector.

[Spanky]

Undoubtedly there are people working harder, I'm not saying thats a lie - particularly in the 2000-2002 years, the bubble burst and some people were laid off.  Those that stayed had to pick up the slack, and willingly did so to keep their jobs.  I'm sure we even have people working harder because of increased workloads that their company has not kept pace with workforce-wise.  All of this is going on, just not at a significant enough rate to explain the sizable productivity gains.  It has been a generally accepted position for many years that our increasing productivity is due in large part to working smarter (automation, technology, etc.) and less so because we're working harder.

Not to quibble here, and I certainly hate to expose some anti-corporation streak, but ... those who stay when belts are tightened pick up added job duties and don't receive added compensation.  When the lean times got a little fatter, companies did not generally swell their workforce back up to pre-lean levels.  Not while workers were still showing up and working 1.5 jobs for 1.0 pay, no matter how much they may bitch about it.  I've heard that story firsthand countless times from my many fake Internet friends.

This is exactly what I see. In my case I even got a promotion in there and was not compensated for it. There are a lot of scare tactics going on. Stuff like "there are other people that would love to do your job" etc....

[birdymaker]

Not to quibble here, and I certainly hate to expose some anti-corporation streak, but ... those who stay when belts are tightened pick up added job duties and don't receive added compensation.  When the lean times got a little fatter, companies did not generally swell their workforce back up to pre-lean levels.  Not while workers were still showing up and working 1.5 jobs for 1.0 pay, no matter how much they may bitch about it.  I've heard that story firsthand countless times from my many fake Internet friends.

that pretty much describes our situation where i work. our production numbers have stayed at level or above, yet our employee numbers have been dwindling for the last one and a half years. work less employees harder for more hours per week, and save all the benefit money you would have been paying the additional workers. 

[Walfredo]

Automation has allowed business to be processed more quickly.  For example, in the insurance business when a customer somewhere in the world signs an app it can be immediately uploaded for underwriting and subsequent policy issue.  And the data warehousing benefits to managing the business to ensure profitability have been very significant as well. 

All of this has increased productivity and most times decreased workload.  Or like hobbit said allowed for smarter working.  Now your high level skilled employees that make sure all the automation works or all the data pulled is actually meaningful thus fix a lot of problems may work harder. 

However, your worker bee that now just pushes buttons, follows written procedure and getting less and less skilled and more and more specialized into his cage, is gaining no valuable knowledge to make him desired in the workforce.  What I mean is the goal of all this automation is for the most part to ensure you could pull a bum off the streets to do the worker bee jobs.  Therefore, those employees have no choice but to push that button for the rest of their lives since no other company cares about that specific set of experience.  So the more we dumbed down their job, the less they required in payment.  Anyone not in technical jobs or upper management is now mostly expendable. 

Hell my company has numerous people that have been here for 25+ years and still don’t make more than 40k a year in annual salary.  But as a private company we get to share in profits more with a nice all colleague bonuses.  Of course our annual salary is lowered because of that. 

[hobbit]

Worker productivity was increasing at the pretty much the same rate from the '95-2000 period as well - and we all know that was a time of few layoffs and pretty good economic times.  Productivity only made a very slight 'jump' during the recession.  Even if we give this 'layoff affect' a generous 20-30% portion of the increase pie - we're still left with 70-80% of it due to other factors, mainly automation, technology, and those micro-level process improvements.

This is how anecdotal evidence can be misleading - we have some experiences with it and hear loads of stories about similar experiences.  We tell/hear few stories about other productivity increase factors - they are just not as interesting, and bad news sells better.  Based upon what we hear, we make judgments on the workforce as a whole.  Its a natural response, we all do it to some extent.  But you do have to step back and take a look at the whole picture to understand all of the affects.


Would be more interesting to see the graphs cover a longer time period - this one is too brief (and I have my assumptions as to why).