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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

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not at all: for example, you can be a non-profit and still contribute to GDP, since you're still creating economic activity. Heck, even what the government does contributes to GDP, and that's not making money for anyone.

So, how much money changes hands off of how much workers work?

If this is a good faith question, you can answer it by reference to any good economics text; or even, you know, Wikipedia. But it feels like maybe it's not.

Here's another example: you volunteer at a homeless shelter, where you serve food on a soup kitchen line. You have contributed to the GDP of the United States. By all means, feel free to fit this into your preferred framework.

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

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not at all: for example, you can be a non-profit and still contribute to GDP, since you're still creating economic activity. Heck, even what the government does contributes to GDP, and that's not making money for anyone.

I think this is exactly what parent meant. "How much is made" doesn't strictly mean "profit" in terms of a for-profit institution. The net output of a non-profit is directed somewhere, either internal or external to the entity, and that can loosely be considered "making money", or at least in the sense I believe parent meant.

GDP is denominated in dollars, so this seems to be a somewhat vacuous position - yes, that's how we measure economic activity, but it doesn't have to involve money changing hands.

Productivity is based on the value of the work done, not any profitability assessment. The original post which set off this chain asserted it was about not how much workers get done but how much money is made off of what workers get done ... which is unambiguously wrong.

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

#154
post #72

Lots of people are productive WFH, but loads are taking it easy. Often in my team Fridays people barely dial in, maybe are connected a few hours max. Thursday afternoons now are dead as people get ready for the weekend... Job market is still strong so no one really cares that much as we know we're difficult to replace.

Excellent, this provides productive evidence for a 4 day work week if everything still runs with folks checked out on Fridays and they’re not in the office performing work theater. https://www.4dayweek.com/ Labor power in the face of a recession comes from dwindling labor supply. 360k boomers retire each month in the US. 1.8 million people over the age of 55 die every year. Not enough folks to backfill. https://archi…

I'd like to agree but the article literally says employee output fell.

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

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think productivity was ever the goal of this software. It was to have a record that is standard, digital, transferable, etc. Doctors fought it as long as they could because they knew what it meant for them. I remember pretty early demos in early/mid 2000s when I was doing some clinical grunt work in college. I had written some software to make my department’s life easier so I was offered up as the hospital’s…

They also fought it because they didn't go to medical school and survive residency to fill out forms all damn day—and they didn't used to have to, they had staff for that. Then the computerized systems "replaced" that staff but all that really means is they cut the human time needed low enough that full-time workers weren't needed, but didn't eliminate it, so now that's another thing doctors have to do themselves. AF…

Some healthcare provider organizations now employ medical scribes who follow physicians around and do all their EHR data entry. This is expensive, but can be cost effective because then the physicians have more time to perform billable procedures.

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

#157
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent, this provides productive evidence for a 4 day work week if everything still runs with folks checked out on Fridays and they’re not in the office performing work theater. https://www.4dayweek.com/ Labor power in the face of a recession comes from dwindling labor supply. 360k boomers retire each month in the US. 1.8 million people over the age of 55 die every year. Not enough folks to backfill. https://archi…

I'd like to agree but the article literally says employee output fell.

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

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not at all: for example, you can be a non-profit and still contribute to GDP, since you're still creating economic activity. Heck, even what the government does contributes to GDP, and that's not making money for anyone.

So, how much money changes hands off of how much workers work?

No, it's a measure of a weighted average quantity of output of goods and services (not of money) compared with the quantity of labor input.

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

#160
post #72

Lots of people are productive WFH, but loads are taking it easy. Often in my team Fridays people barely dial in, maybe are connected a few hours max. Thursday afternoons now are dead as people get ready for the weekend... Job market is still strong so no one really cares that much as we know we're difficult to replace.

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