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U.S. workers have gotten less productive – no one is sure why

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Re: U.S. workers have gotten less productive – no one is sure why

#5
post #4

Perhaps people are at the point of revolt over the ever widening productivity vs pay gap? https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ Productivity kept on climbing and wages stagnated post ~1980 Time for the workers to reap some of that benefit.

It's supply and demand - the supply of workers has doubled the last decades while demand has remained roughly the same. I think it's a miracle that salaries are so high currently.

Re: U.S. workers have gotten less productive – no one is sure why

#6
Perhaps people have had to expend more energy just keeping their personal life together in the last few years. People with children have had to deal with the constant school closings, childcare facility closings, etc. and that has taken its toll. They may have family members who got Covid or had treatment for other ailments delayed by the pandemic's rush to treat Covid patients. They could've experienced a huge shift in the switch to remote working in 2020, and are now expected to make another huge shift back to in-office working.

This doesn't even account for the incredible decline in civility from customers if you work a customer-facing job. The slightest inconvenience or mistake can end up in a tantrum by an American adult that only sometimes gets captured on video. And in the meantime, a bunch of people walk around opining that "Nobody wants to work anymore" as if they deserve to be waited on hand and foot regardless of circumstance.

Re: U.S. workers have gotten less productive – no one is sure why

#7
> 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

It also comes at a time when many employers are shifting back to hybrid schedules and RTO, despite employee claims that remote work allowed flexibility helped them work more efficiently

.

What a mystery.

Re: U.S. workers have gotten less productive – no one is sure why

#8
post #4

Perhaps people are at the point of revolt over the ever widening productivity vs pay gap? https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ Productivity kept on climbing and wages stagnated post ~1980 Time for the workers to reap some of that benefit.

I doubt it.

Re: U.S. workers have gotten less productive – no one is sure why

#10
post #4

Perhaps people are at the point of revolt over the ever widening productivity vs pay gap? https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ Productivity kept on climbing and wages stagnated post ~1980 Time for the workers to reap some of that benefit.

It could also be a generalized disillusion in the system. I believe what pushed americans through for generations was the american dream. No american believed to be poor, they were all simply "future millionaires".

But what if people realized that it was only a delusion, that it can never be that everyone is rich, because then who would do the dirty jobs? There is no social pyramid without a base, this system is litterally designed to have a class of poor people forced to do shitty jobs to survive.

If you take away the hope of a wealthy future, there are no reasons left to slave away your life on a corporate ladder.

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