US Workers Have Gotten Way Less Productive (washingtonpost.com) 211
Employers across the country are worried that workers are getting less done -- and there's evidence they're right to be spooked. From a report: In the first half of 2022, productivity -- the measure of how much output in goods and services an employee can produce in an hour -- plunged by the sharpest rate on record going back to 1947, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The productivity plunge is perplexing, because productivity took off to levels not seen in decades when the coronavirus pandemic forced an overnight switch to remote work, leading some economists to suggest that the pandemic might spark longer-term growth. It also raises new questions about the shift to hybrid schedules and remote work, as employees have made the case that flexibility helped them work more efficiently. And it comes at a time when "quiet quitting" -- doing only what's expected and no more -- is resonating, especially with younger workers.
Productivity is strong in manufacturing, but it's down elsewhere in the private sector, according to Diego Comin, professor of economics at Dartmouth College. He noted that productivity is particularly tricky to gauge for knowledge workers, whose contributions aren't as easy to measure. "It is strange," Comin said. "The data is very odd these past couple of quarters in so many different ways. It's hard to even tell a coherent story." Tech CEOs such as Google's Sundar Pichai and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg have been pledging to boost productivity, calling out low performers and asking their workers to do more. Meanwhile, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said his company coined the term "productivity paranoia" to describe employers' anxieties about whether their employees are working hard enough.
Productivity is strong in manufacturing, but it's down elsewhere in the private sector, according to Diego Comin, professor of economics at Dartmouth College. He noted that productivity is particularly tricky to gauge for knowledge workers, whose contributions aren't as easy to measure. "It is strange," Comin said. "The data is very odd these past couple of quarters in so many different ways. It's hard to even tell a coherent story." Tech CEOs such as Google's Sundar Pichai and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg have been pledging to boost productivity, calling out low performers and asking their workers to do more. Meanwhile, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said his company coined the term "productivity paranoia" to describe employers' anxieties about whether their employees are working hard enough.
Units per hour is bad way to meter IT work (Score:5, Insightful)
Units per hour is bad way to meter IT work now for an factory yes but not for IT work or call center work as that will just lead to useing bad metrics
Re:Units per hour is bad way to meter IT work (Score:5, Insightful)
But this article has nothing to do with productivity, because it is only about companies who don't actually produce anything.
Tech CEOs such as Google's Sundar Pichai and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg have been pledging to boost productivity, calling out low performers and asking their workers to do more.
Do more .... what? Attend more meetings? Write more memos? Add more stupid useless features to their company's websites?
I keep seeing more and more articles about "productivity" which apparently is the new popular buzzword. But it still doesn't answer the question -- How do you "increase productivity" in a company that doesn't actually produce anything?
Who cancles the most products (Score:5, Funny)
Google measures productivity in who canceled the most products loved by end users.
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Well... if your job was adding stupid, useless features to company websites, then it should probably be eliminated entirely.
Re:Units per hour is bad way to meter IT work (Score:5, Insightful)
Tech CEOs such as Google's Sundar Pichai and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg have been pledging to boost productivity, calling out low performers and asking their workers to do more.
Do more .... what? Attend more meetings? Write more memos? Add more stupid useless features to their company's websites?
To me this reads as a way to plant the seed for future severance-free layoffs.
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To me this reads as a way to plant the seed for future severance-free layoffs.
Probably. That at least would be rational in an evil sense.
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Re: Units per hour is bad way to meter IT work (Score:4, Funny)
I'd start with a very long pepperoni and a very sharp knife.
Re:Units per hour is bad way to meter IT work (Score:5, Insightful)
Let workers work from home: massive boost in productivity. I know I was able to do a lot more work working from home, and it was measurable in a way where all of management saw it.
Come back to the office: massive productivity crash. Big shock, being forced to attend meetings to discuss everything but work, with a little bumper of actual work, has a negative impact on productivity? Not to mention that hour and some change a day spent in traffic instead of working.
The problem is the CEOs and such don't understand why productivity skyrocketed when working from home. The premise is, "The massive productivity increase is now the bar to reach. Reach it, or you will pay." No quarter. No discussion of the circumstances surrounding the increase, just, "new bar, do that."
I think companies in America are either in for a rude awakening, or they'll just keep cutting the workforce until everybody's starving enough to take their shit. Guess we'll see who wins this particular war of attrition in the end. Something tells me it won't be the American worker. If we wanted decent treatment by employers in the twenty-first century? We should have had the forethought to be born in another country.
more unions are needed! (Score:5, Insightful)
more unions are needed!
Re:more unions are needed! (Score:4, Interesting)
I still get a yearly flyer from a previous employer that looks legit as fuck, but is actually all bullshit, saying it's illegal for IT workers to unionize. My current employer hasn't tried to clever their way into that one yet. Yet.
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Yes, but we're concerned about productivity falling without those impromptu meetings in hallways so everyone back to their desks!
Re:Units per hour is bad way to meter IT work (Score:4, Insightful)
Let workers work from home: massive boost in productivity.
Working from home has both pros and cons for productivity. It's not entirely clear that people either concentrate better or devote more time at home. For example, it's clear that avoiding commuting allows that commute time to be used for something else, but it's not clear whether most (or any) people use that time for extra work. Obviously there are no in-person meetings at home, but there are plenty of online meetings. There are no in-person face-to-face disruptions at home, but there are plenty of slack/etc. disruptions, and for those of us with family at home, there are non-work distractions.
Some people can block out distractions at work, and some people can block out distractions at home. My guess is that those people who were distracted at work tend to be the ones that are distracted at home.
Work from home is an obvious win for flexibility, avoiding commutes, and relocating to cheaper locations. It's not clear to me that it has a great impact on productivity.
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It is clear that when an individual has measurable proof that productivity increases when working from home C-suites will absolutely ignore that proof.
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Re:Units per hour is bad way to meter IT work (Score:4, Interesting)
No. Unless you extend environment to include everything from waking up in the morning until getting back home/logging off in the evening.
I start work more than an hour earlier now that I work from home. This is time when there aren't a lot of distractions. I don't get many calls, there aren't any meetings scheduled, it's blissful and productive.
But this is because I roll out of bed, grab coffee and breakfast, and log into work. There's no full breakfast, shower, get dressed, and commute. I could get up like 1.5 hrs earlier and do all that and get to work at roughly the same time. but even if I did that I wouldn't be as productive simply because of the stress of doing all that.
Likewise, I log off in the afternoon more than an hour earlier than I used to leave work, freeing up more than 2 hrs in my day compared to commuting. That's 2 more hours for relaxation, getting stuff done around the house, etc. That, in turns, leads to better sleep, making me more productive the next day.
Even if I could get an airy, sunny, private office at work, with blissful silence unles I want music on, cat friends who come say hello a few times a day, very nice coffee available at all times, and a lot of delicious food with no lines for the microwave or stove, no restrictions on fridge use, no fire or tornado drills, EVEN WITH all that, I'd still have the longer work day due to the commute and dress-up requirements, the increased stress from the ccommute, and the 2 less hours a day for non-work things which are awesome for my mental health and wellbeing.
But work can't give me a fraction of that!
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Makes a lot of sense to me. Of course the perpetrators of "meetings" and other productivity killers are never willing to see how much damage they do.
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Units per hour is bad way to meter IT work now for an factory yes but not for IT work or call center work as that will just lead to useing bad metrics
Naah. Millennials are a bad way to run IT.
In my experience, they are usually at least a few minutes late several days per week--but they're out a few seconds before the bell.
They aren't interested in working any overtime when big projects come up--even though they are salaried higher than every other damn IT company in the area, and we expect 4x9-hour days with the 5th day being 6 hours because we close early.
They're constantly sick. They are constantly asking about time off and vacation to "manage st
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Any worker at my company who is ~40 years old or older is reliable, trustworthy, honest, and a hard worker. Anyone younger than that is a disaster.
You realize that some of the oldest Millennials turned 40 last year? You might want to update your ageist complaints from Millennials to to Zoomers.
Can you imagine being paid $5k/mo to sit on your ass
There's a reason I make about 6 times what they make.
You make $360k a year but have time to bitch anonymously on Slashdot? Nice.
I have missed two days in the last 10 years, taken 3x10-day vacations (usually across a weekend) and 1 week off when my wife gave birth.
Do you want a trophy? I feel sorry for you. You're going to die and the only thing people will remember is "that dead guy sure was a great cog in the machine." There's more to life besides work.
Re:Units per hour is bad way to meter IT work (Score:4, Insightful)
This one is easy to read, see it all the time. Are you alcoholic too? I was a workaholic/alcoholic. Either way you are not finding joy in life, get help, spend more time with your family!
I'm guessing these new hires make about 80-85% of what you make after 10 years and you feel slighted, have you considered a career change? Companies change every 5-7 years, sometimes you have to move on.
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Indeed. Those that use bad metrics shall forever make bad decisions based on them. Of course, most non-factory work productivity metrics are complete nonsense. The one I like best is lines-of-code written per hour.
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Tell me about it. Call center metrics have always been garbage.
You're basically graded on how quickly you can get rid of someone. Not "solving" the issue which is completely ignored.
Also Sales, "Customer support" and "Technical Support" have different needs, and when call centers try to get their CS staff to upsell without giving them the sales commission, shows you what's wrong with the entire phone support system.
Basically you need 5 queues, and each of these queues ONLY OVERLAP, and to not replace each
Squeeze them harder (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Squeeze them harder (Score:5, Interesting)
bad metrics lead to people doing the metrics over (Score:5, Insightful)
bad metrics lead to people doing the metrics over real work or spending hours filling out tps reports vs doing the work.
Re:bad metrics lead to people doing the metrics ov (Score:5, Insightful)
If you manage by numbers, I'll provide numbers.
Any system can be gamed. If you prefer to be bullshitted, that can be arranged.
Re:Squeeze them harder (Score:5, Insightful)
On what cost account do I write these 4 hours per week that you want me to spend on 'time tracking'?
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Productivity decrease by measures intended to increase productivity. Old story. Also, they will take and take and take until things break. These morons never learn that it still has to be a somewhat fair exchange to work.
Thank you (Score:5, Insightful)
We need more of this pushback. Every time. Businesses will do everything possible to frame this as something wrong with employees. America exploits its people to an insane degree, and the stresses of it are finally rearing its head while the corps make record profits.
"Quiet quitting" -- what an absolute garbage way to frame doing your job as defined as a bad thing.
They can go fuck themselves.
Re:Thank you (Score:5, Interesting)
"Productivity" has been a stick to hit workers with for my whole working life and people seem to have had enough.
Where I work management have instituted an unannounced sinking lid policy, so when someone leaves their duties get dropped on someone else.
Guess what? Nobody likes that and resignations are increasing. I know, surprising isn't it? We've just lost our senior researcher who will literally be irreplaceable, but I'm sure some Vice-President will decide someone else can do what he did. Which they can't.
All this during a time of record sales and near record profits.
Oh yes, 2.5% pay increase, about 1/3 the level of inflation.
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All this during a time of record sales and near record profits.
Greed knows no bounds.
Well, the greedy morons are too stupid not to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. What you describe sounds like an upcoming complete collapse of the company in the near future. Obviously caused not by anybody that does actual work, but by the nil-whits in management.
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"asking their workers to do more" (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want people to do more it helps to (and i know this isn't apprently taught in MBA courses) pay them more.
If I am a customer of Google or Microsoft's and i want them to "do more" they are going to charge me accordingly.
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that only works for share holders and ceo's
the slaves must do with more whip
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Well, some slaveholder societies found that treating your slaves like they have value, giving them career paths and rights and a way to freedom works massively better. The Romans, did that. The whip never increases productivity in any meaningful way except for no-skill work. And there only temporary. And if you overdo it, you get an uprising.
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Paying employees is heresy, and you have been reported to the holy profit center for your anti-MBA stance. Reeducation units should be in your area within the hour. Prepare yourself for indoctrination to the ways of the holy profit. Hallelujah. Praise the mighty $.
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If I am a customer of Google or Microsoft's and i want them to "do more" they are going to charge me accordingly.
But that's executive bonus pool money, not worker salary money!
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My local government is paying people one RCH above minimum wage to be clerks and whatnot. Then people wonder why the government is incapable. We'll never know whether the employees are capable or not, because at this pay scale, they'll never give a fuck — but if they can hire anyone of quality for that amount, it's a miracle for the county and a fucking tragedy for the person employed.
When even government jobs pay jack shit, you know you're in a shithole.
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That sounds extreme, but government jobs were never a way to get rich, unless you were near the top. The were a way to have a steady job despite economic cycles.
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Also government jobs have tended to carry increased benefits besides pay. Healthcare, some sort of retirement fund or even (gasp) a pension plan and usually there tends to be some sort of labor union involvement in a lot of government work.
My impression of government jobs from local to federal is that it won't pay top notch but you can do your time, retire and be done at the end.
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Especially in California, most government jobs have decent pay. But not up here in Humboldt.
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If you want people to do more it helps to (...) pay them more.
Of course, (1) there's only so much one person can (or want to) actually do regardless of how much you pay them; and (2) at some point you need to consider hiring more people, even if that's slightly more expensive (because of overhead and per-employee expenses, etc...). I think a lot of employees are burned out from being asked to do more (and not always getting paid more) and employers should be hiring more people, but don't want to because either (a) they're cheap or (b) they don't really value their e
Re:"asking their workers to do more" (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, with the price of housing in most okay places to live, not even counting the good places to live, being so expense that even two people that make the national average can't get a home. Housing should cost half as much as it does given the average income.
It's no wonder so many people would be happy to watch the entire country burn down. Most of the population isn't getting a fair share of the spoils, not by a long shot.
Reversion to the mean (Score:2)
[production] plunged by the sharpest rate on record going back to 1947, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. ... The productivity plunge is perplexing, because productivity took off to levels not seen in decades when the coronavirus pandemic forced an overnight switch to remote work...
This is an effect called "regression to the mean." [wolfram.com] Look it up.
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Sorry management! There is more to life than work and a paycheck and now that we've discovered this is true, there's no putting that genie back in the bottle.
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This is an effect called "regression to the mean." Look it up.
Absolutely. If you look Q1 & Q2 of 2023 combined (in the chart given in the article), productivity is still 2% higher than Q1&Q2 of 2019, and 5.5% higher than in 2018.
still keep a written daily work diary (Score:2)
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I still keep a written daily work diary, that is my property and walks out the door with me.
Is that in your contract, or other terms of employment?
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Or maybe he's not the sort of person to roll over when the boss tries to impose himself.
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You're assuming his boss hasn't noticed.
Being willing to roll over or not is irrelevant if that's the company's property because you developed it on their time.
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Inflation-adjusted productivity is constant (Score:2)
Drugs and social media (Score:2)
Re:Drugs and social media (Score:5, Insightful)
It is, as we can see now. As soon as they started pushing people back into offices, productivity took a nose dive.
In the home office, I can actually get some meaningful work accomplished while pretending to listen to narcissist drone on in pointless meetings. That's kinda hard to pull off in on-site meetings, all you can do there is to mentally undress the intern while pretending to listen to the self-absorbed management drone that tries desperately to appear relevant.
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I only do drugs. Using social media is way too hardcore for me, I don't want to be the product.
Quiet Quitting (Score:5, Insightful)
I do what I'm paid for. Pay me more if you want more work.
Re: Quiet Quitting (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: Quiet Quitting (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I do what my contract says. We have a contract. Not a relationship. My contract stipulates how many hours per day I'm here working, it also stipulates how much money you pay for this.
Screw bosses that try to bullshit and guilt-trip you into unpaid overtime. You want my time, you pay for it!
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So, hire a few subordinates and work on the big picture stuff.
Funny story, our regular secretary /admin assistant (who was great) took a few months off, so the boss hired this Australian chick (who was also great) and she went around organising stuff and so on and so forth. But then one day somebody needed a whole bunch of typing done, which our usual secretary would have done. instead to our vast amusement she hired a typist. Well played.
Re:Quiet Quitting (Score:4, Interesting)
Can we kills this bullshit term created by "Human Capital" companies? I do what I am paid for. It is not considered 'quitting' if I don't. This goes back to the whole idea of 'casual overtime' where it's expected that your work. Just another phrase created by management and HR to try to guilt their employees.
I do what I'm paid for. Pay me more if you want more work.
The term comes from social media, not companies [wikipedia.org].
I suspect there's a few variations of the meaning depending on who you talk to:
a) Your "quit" the job during off-hours, basically just trying to have a healthy work-life balance. Few people should find this objectionable (for most job descriptions).
b) Quitting the extra work responsibilities you accumulated over time but never got reflected in your title or pay. This is going to be very context depended on how reasonable each side is.
c) Basically trying to quit the job without your employer realizing so you still get paid. Either try to do the bare minimum to not get fired to keep it going long term, or show up to meetings and make excuses as long as possible until you're laid off. This version seems the least defensible.
Either way, I think you're thinking of version (a), but that's not the meaning that everyone ascribes to the term.
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The term comes from social media, not companies [wikipedia.org].
Coming from companies and appearing on social media are not mutually exclusive.
Productivity is way down, you say? (Score:5, Insightful)
And it overlaps with the time period where all the managers are trying to force people back into the office? Yeah, that's a stumper.
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And it overlaps with the time period where all the managers are trying to force people back into the office? Yeah, that's a stumper.
Alternatively, teams which well together because they actually know each other and had good human-to-human relationships managed power through a year of remote work but eventually ran out of steam? Yeah, stumped there too.
What did you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
You force people back into office, they spend their time there looking for new jobs.
Re:What did you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
They are less productive in the office as well. The number of distractions in the office is insane. I get way less work done in office than at home.
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It's mostly meetings I'd say. At home, you can get some work done while the narcissist management dud drones on about something nobody but him gives a fuck, that's not so easy in an office where he would actually notice that nobody gives 2 shits about him telling everyone how great the company is doing.
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At least half of my office spent the first 90 minutes today in the kitchen congratulating each other on their costumes. That before breaking for an early company provided lunch, and those always go long too. Then everyone with kids is leaving early today. Not sure why we opened today at all.
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Well, apparently they were more productive doing that than whatever they're doing now.
That's capitalism (Score:2)
Supply Side Jesus (Score:5, Insightful)
This sounds like a problem for Supply Side Jesus. When DeSantis and his fellow Dominionists take over the US government and impose theocratic rule, I'm sure they'll make grants available for whips and chains to increase productivity, along with a Book of Common Prayer Against Things Evangelicals Hate and Want to Destroy, America will be back on top in no time.
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Good point, tovarish once we overthrow the capitalist dogs, we can usher in a utopian dictatorship of the proletariat, after all it will definitely work this time? What can possibly go wrong?
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Education? That's easy. No one goes past the fourth grade, except of course the elite, and they're taught that dinosaur bones were put their by Satan, and the best way to fight Satan is to work for minimum wage, but wait, Supply Side Jesus would prefer workers be essentially indentured and work for gruel. No need for hospitals, except of course for Evangelical/Republican leadership, so there will always be a need for fresh slaves, which, with the banning of birth control, will be achieved rather easily.
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I think you're assuming that the domionists are all fakes. That's probably not true. For those who actually believe that garbage, destroying society is a plus, because that will hasten Armageddon.
What? (Score:2)
Unproductive? How is that possible? Side note: why do people keep pinging me when I am busy discussing the the important issues of the day and correcting idiots on slashdot? I will have last months TPS report done by tomorrow for fucks sake. A few weeks of delay never hurt anyone, can they not go by last months numbers? Besides, I cant submit it until I get my stapler back anyway.
Useless jobs (Score:3)
It's not a mystery, it's right there, giant companies hiring people to do nothing for billions of dollars.
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Wealth redistribution?
You get what you pay for (Score:3, Insightful)
Averages are skewed (Score:2)
Just the same way as a tiny percentage of the US population owns most of the wealth, a tiny fraction of the workforce creates the most productivity.
The recent statistics have been distorted solely because of Elon Musk. In the last couple of quarters this modern-day John Galt turned away from generating huge positive productivity creating electric cars and rockets, and instead he now generates a massive negative productivity by running a pointless app that redistributes moronic soundbites. This single factor
Oh the irony! (Score:2)
Old (Score:3)
Can you even measure productivity for most jobs? (Score:4)
Not ever case has the same level of difficulty. Not every patient requires the same amount of time. How meaningful is "productivity" for any profession that requires creative thinking and problem solving?
Corporate Propaganda (Score:5, Insightful)
You cannot claim your workers are lazy and less productive in one breath, while boasting of record profits in the next.
No one believes the executive level folks are doing all of the work, so one of the above statements is a lie. . . .
I wonder which one it is . . . . :|
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"You cannot claim your workers are lazy and less productive in one breath, while boasting of record profits in the next."
You can if your reality distortion field is turned to 11.
5% pay raise and 8% inflation? I think I just heard this morning the railroad workers are holding out for 24% pay raises albeit spread over several years.
Management is as clueless as usual.
hahahah (Score:2)
"No, no, you're ridiculous for asserting that working from home is going to be a problem."
-everyone here.
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Well, the alleged boost in productivity came as most office workers became remote workers. The loss of productivity comes as at this point most office workers have been directed back into the office. If it correlates to remote/local, it may be a sort of 'rebellion' against being dragged back in, or the intrusion of meetings with managers of the 'close your laptop' mindset.
Of course, measures of productivity is weird, and macroeconomic circumstances perhaps more relevant than this work from home/work from o
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Well, working from home apparently isn't the problem. Read the article again. Productivity went up when people went into home office and now that PHBs try to force them back into offices, productivity plunges.
Makes sense if you think about it. Instead of working, they now have to listen to narcissists drone in presentations instead of putting it on mute and pretending to watch in a background window while working.
understandable after the great resignation (Score:3)
No (Score:2)
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The labor output matches what is being paid to the employees.
We were putting in effort in excess of 100% of the pay scale pre-inflation . . . if you were 'unproductive'.
Or, arbitrary dev measurement tools like Jira... (Score:2)
Are making it look that way. If clueless manager/PO/Etc. set forth a bunch of tasks and pressures the developers to "point" things, which creates goals that aren't met (and could never have been met and wouldn't have been committed to without the everyday pressure of morning meetings), it now *looks* like people are less productive.
Outside of the development world, there may be other issue, but if I know nothing else, I know every management measurement tool I've ever seen is sheer baloney.
obligatory (Score:2)
the flogging will continue until morality improves.
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ooops
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what were you thinking ...
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Keep flogging and more workers will slip through your fingers and move to companies where they ain't treated like cattle.
Productivity (Score:2)
So productivity skyrocketed when the pandemic finally forced companies to embrace work from home, and then plunged more than any other time in history when workers were called back into the office.
Sounds right to me.
Supply Chain (Score:4, Insightful)
Is anyone going to mention supply chain issues?
Things don't run smoothly or efficeintly when parts are delayed.
For you computer centric types: imagine being forced to use a company laptop that's 3 weeks on back order.
I wonder what your productivity will be.
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And this correlates with the moment PHBs are trying to force people back into offices for what reason exactly?