November 6th, 2009 :: Permalink

Aloha ~
As the economy is massively critical to all of us and it's growth or collapse has direct implications to all these topics, I want to point out the statistics we should be talking about today. HA headlines read, "Unemployment tops 10 percent for first time since 1983."

This isn't even close to the important news. Buried beneath the "leads if it bleeds" story line is information on productivity ...

From today's HA article, "Companies are squeezing more production from their existing work forces. Productivity, the amount of output per hour worked, jumped 9.5 percent in the third quarter ... and followed a 6.9 percent rise in the second quarter. The increases enable companies to produce more without hiring extra people."

Companies in America COULD be hiring more workers. Instead they are asking existing workers to do more.

This would be PONO if they were paying workers more for the added work. Yet companies are not giving raises. You are not getting raises.

Instead we are distracted by petty dramas while our families are collapsing. Productivity has increased by more than 16 percent over the last two quarters - the past six months. Who got a raise? Who got hired?

Where did this increased revenue of 16 percent go?

A*L*O*H*A