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Of course it's too early to tell with lots of confounding variables, but labor productivity has been taking a steep dive[0]. So perhaps in the aggregate, WFH is

Of course it's too early to tell with lots of confounding variables, but labor productivity has been taking a steep dive[0]. So perhaps in the aggregate, WFH is resulting in less work being done. I say this as someone who's been full-time WFH for over a decade; I'm not taking a position one way or another. [0]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MPU4910063 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MPU4910063

ricardobeat 3y ago
Have salaries followed that curve for productivity increases?
LatteLazy 3y ago
Productivity can't really be defined, let alone measured. When people start talking about it they have left hard facts behind I'm afraid...
- pc86 3y ago
  Maybe not for what most of us do but for a lot of jobs, especially blue collar jobs, it absolutely can be measured down to the smallest increment. If you work on an assembly line, or really anything that isn't mostly knowledge work, your productivity can be measured very accurately.
  - LatteLazy 3y ago
    How many people do knowledge work vs assembly work these days? Plus WFH is really not for manual work. And that's without getting into the fact that on an assembly line you can only go as fast as the slowest worker, so everyone's productivity is capped. Or looking at things like error/defect rates that contradict "items per minute" definitions of productivity. People think you can measure this as a single number. At best, for a very limited number of workers, who don't WFH anyway, you can measure it. But you cannot compare those workers with the workers next to them doing similar but slightly different jobs even. So it's a huge mess and the idea of a graph of it for the USA is like making a graph of the average number of testicles. Except people take it seriously!?
sottol 3y ago
I think that a tight labor market has more to do with worker productivity than WFH. After all why work so hard if you can find a new job quickly. Productivity shot up early COVID when people were scared and WFH started?
jbombadil 3y ago
That chart confuses me. Each data point is percentage increase vs the PREVIOUS year? So the "steep dive" that you talk about is a single year -1.7% decrease vs a decade of constant increase, going as high as 4.6% in a single year? I feel that chart is almost deceitful. Every year that this is above 0 is a percentage win no matter the delta. So if that chart showed * 2030 -> 20% * 2031 -> 1% It'd feel like a steep dive, but 2031 would still be an _increase_ in productivity over 2030.
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  It's the rate of change if you draw the variable in a monolog paper. That is, a constant value there leads to an exponential growth (or reduction) of the real value. It's common to draw economic indicators this way. Basically, if one year had +3 and the next -3, you would be back at the original value. The largest ever 4.6 at the peak of WFH in 2020 and the fall to a normal 2.2 in 2021 both represent fast growth in productivity. The only "bad" point there is the -1.7 at the peak of RTO in 2022. So the GP's analysis is indeed bullshit. (But anyway, there are some much more compelling explanations for 2022 than RTO, do not take it as evidence against mandating office work, it's not strong enough for that.)
lsy 3y ago
Looking at the graph, it seems like productivity skyrocketed in 2020 (when everyone was WFH), returned to the 2019 baseline in 2021, and dived in 2022. To me this indicates that it's somehow hurting productivity for people to have returned to offices.
js8 3y ago
"Labor productivity" is a weird measure. If the worker gets better off, earning higher wages for the same effort, does his productivity go up or down? It goes down because you now have to pay him more for the same amount of work. But it also goes up because marginal utility of his work has increased.
rybosworld 3y ago
> So perhaps in the aggregate, WFH is resulting in less work being done That's a pretty big leap. Manufacturing and Durable Manufacturing had the biggest decreases and WFH isn't a thing in those sectors. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/prod2.nr0.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/prod2.nr0.htm
pc86 3y ago
Here is the same chart showing an absolute value instead of percentage change. Not quite as steep of a dive - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=17uvX https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=17uvX - in fact, nothing that could be considered a "dive" by any reasonable person.
- piva00 3y ago
  It's much more eye opening as well, productivity per hour of labour has doubled from the baseline right before 1990, salaries have definitely not increased at the same rate.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

ricardobeat 3y ago

Have salaries followed that curve for productivity increases?

LatteLazy 3y ago

Productivity can't really be defined, let alone measured. When people start talking about it they have left hard facts behind I'm afraid...

pc86 3y ago
Maybe not for what most of us do but for a lot of jobs, especially blue collar jobs, it absolutely can be measured down to the smallest increment. If you work on an assembly line, or really anything that isn't mostly knowledge work, your productivity can be measured very accurately.
- LatteLazy 3y ago
  How many people do knowledge work vs assembly work these days? Plus WFH is really not for manual work. And that's without getting into the fact that on an assembly line you can only go as fast as the slowest worker, so everyone's productivity is capped. Or looking at things like error/defect rates that contradict "items per minute" definitions of productivity. People think you can measure this as a single number. At best, for a very limited number of workers, who don't WFH anyway, you can measure it. But you cannot compare those workers with the workers next to them doing similar but slightly different jobs even. So it's a huge mess and the idea of a graph of it for the USA is like making a graph of the average number of testicles. Except people take it seriously!?

sottol 3y ago

I think that a tight labor market has more to do with worker productivity than WFH. After all why work so hard if you can find a new job quickly. Productivity shot up early COVID when people were scared and WFH started?

jbombadil 3y ago

That chart confuses me. Each data point is percentage increase vs the PREVIOUS year? So the "steep dive" that you talk about is a single year -1.7% decrease vs a decade of constant increase, going as high as 4.6% in a single year? I feel that chart is almost deceitful. Every year that this is above 0 is a percentage win no matter the delta. So if that chart showed * 2030 -> 20% * 2031 -> 1% It'd feel like a steep dive, but 2031 would still be an _increase_ in productivity over 2030.

marcosdumay 3y ago
It's the rate of change if you draw the variable in a monolog paper. That is, a constant value there leads to an exponential growth (or reduction) of the real value. It's common to draw economic indicators this way. Basically, if one year had +3 and the next -3, you would be back at the original value. The largest ever 4.6 at the peak of WFH in 2020 and the fall to a normal 2.2 in 2021 both represent fast growth in productivity. The only "bad" point there is the -1.7 at the peak of RTO in 2022. So the GP's analysis is indeed bullshit. (But anyway, there are some much more compelling explanations for 2022 than RTO, do not take it as evidence against mandating office work, it's not strong enough for that.)

lsy 3y ago

Looking at the graph, it seems like productivity skyrocketed in 2020 (when everyone was WFH), returned to the 2019 baseline in 2021, and dived in 2022. To me this indicates that it's somehow hurting productivity for people to have returned to offices.

js8 3y ago

"Labor productivity" is a weird measure. If the worker gets better off, earning higher wages for the same effort, does his productivity go up or down? It goes down because you now have to pay him more for the same amount of work. But it also goes up because marginal utility of his work has increased.

rybosworld 3y ago

> So perhaps in the aggregate, WFH is resulting in less work being done That's a pretty big leap. Manufacturing and Durable Manufacturing had the biggest decreases and WFH isn't a thing in those sectors. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/prod2.nr0.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/prod2.nr0.htm

pc86 3y ago

Here is the same chart showing an absolute value instead of percentage change. Not quite as steep of a dive - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=17uvX https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=17uvX - in fact, nothing that could be considered a "dive" by any reasonable person.

piva00 3y ago
It's much more eye opening as well, productivity per hour of labour has doubled from the baseline right before 1990, salaries have definitely not increased at the same rate.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]