Archive Report
Archive Report
Worry Over Lag in Worker Output
Job Performance and America's Economic Ills
Economists have begun to identify poor productivity growth as the root cause of many other economic ills. They contend that the efficiency of American workers, if not actually declining, is at least not growing as fast as it was in the past or as fast as that of workers in other countries. Although productivity began lagging in the mid-Sixties, wages continued to go up. These are viewed as the major factors in America's persistant inflation and the failure of American goods to compete in foreign and domestic markets.
Furthermore, some economists believe that changes in the economy and in public attitudes toward jobs, the environment and technology may mean that future large-scale increases in productivity ...