4 ms·
FYI, (non-farm) Labor productivity declined by 5.2% year over year: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/prod2.t02.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/prod2.t02.
by rsj_hn 5y ago
FYI,
(non-farm) Labor productivity declined by 5.2% year over year:
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/prod2.t02.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/prod2.t02.htm
If you break these numbers down, you see that total production increased by 1.2%, but it required 7.4% more labor to produce that extra 1.2%. Compensation went up around 3% but of course in real terms it declined -- it pretty much has to decline if you need more labor to produce the same amount of stuff.
Whether or not this is a trend or some weird pandemic related thing will be seen over time.
- MichaelRazum 5y agoSounds strange. What about this graph https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OPHNFB https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OPHNFB I would argue that just based on the technological progress total average productivity per person should go up.
- rsj_hn 5y agoYes, just based on that it should go up, but there's a huge difference about it increasing at 0.5% per annum and 1.5% per annum, and it's not going to go up monotonically, which is the difference between your long run graph and the latest BLS announcement. In certain situations, when an economy is mismanaged, it will go down for prolonged periods of time, but again one year changes are not a significant trend. But this article about worker pay and inflation is not about long term trends, but recent (since 2020) trends.