Companies' productivity soars 9.4 percent

[veganwitch]

http://www.salon.com/tech/wire/2003/12/03/productivity/index.html

Dec. 3, 2003 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- Productivity of U.S. companies rocketed at a 9.4 percent annual rate in the third quarter, the best showing in 20 years, offering an encouraging sign that the economic resurgence will be lasting.

The increase in productivity -- the amount an employee produces per hour of work -- reported by the Labor Department on Wednesday was even stronger than the 8.1 percent pace initially estimated for the July-to-September quarter a month ago and was up from a 7 percent growth rate posted in the second quarter of this year.

The third-quarter's productivity gain, based on more complete data, was better than the 9.2 percent growth rate economists were forecasting and marked the strongest performance since the second quarter of 1983, when productivity grew at a blistering 9.7 percent rate.

The report raised new hopes that businesses may be more confident than before that the economic rebound is genuine.

(snip)

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or maybe it has something to do with less people doing the same amount of work. laying off people will do that.

[maxsolomon]

1. bush is a genius!

now if we could only eliminate that pesky 40 hour law!

[Redleg]

2. Bad news for unemployed and under-employed workers.

And for those about to become unemployed because their company is more productive but demand for their company's goods and services has not increased at a similar rate.

[Fitzovich]

3. Agreed

This is just wonderful news in the boardroom but, on the shop floor it's just do more with less, cut hours, cut benefits, cut jobs, cut, cut, cut. I would be willing to bet that there will be a bunch of CEO bonuses at the end of the year with this wonderful news.

[veganwitch]

4. i just wanted to add that...

ive been personally trying to bring that number down. i spend a good chunk of the work day on DU.

hahahahahaha losers!

[chaska]

5. You go, girl!

Stick it to the man ... then twist it.

[Zomby Woof]

6. reminds me of the early 90's

We were squeezing more work out of the least amount of people, and temp jobs were common, if there were jobs to be had.

Now if we can just get a rerun and knock another one-term Bush out like we did then.

[creativelcro]

7. productivity numbers are totally bogus

Think, if we had all machines working and ZERO humans, productivity would be infinite ! how about that ?

[Emboldened Chimp]

8. Hmm...how much of this 'productivity' comes from overseas...?

:shrug: