GolfHos

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but really everyone,  go out and vote based on which party(ies) stand against gay teen marriages dissolving due to abortions or whatever other hotbutton social issue of personal moral outrage that represents truly meaningful *feces* in life.  via la corporación ! viva la  aristocracia !

When I looked at the first graph I immediately heard the "which one of these things is not like the other" song in my head.  'Productivity' is a red herring in this regard.  Its not because we're working harder - its automation, technology, etc. that accounts for the large increases.  All these things cost a lot of money - so to include and compare productivity increases to wages, but leave out the investments that led to a large part of it... a trifle misleading eh?

And CEO pay closely follows the market because they are so heavily compensated with stock options, so thats a big 'like, duh' graph.

Now, corporate profits compared to compensation - thats probably (without understanding the sources) a fair graph.  Where's our trickle down you say?  Doesn't seem to be there does it?  At least not very significant.  So, thats not great.  But tell me, what is the party of 'look at the bad, bad republicans' going to do about it?

I don't know about this. At my job in 2000 when I started we had 8 technicians per shift and probably 40 to 50 operators. (this is in my area only) Today we have 5 techs on days and 2 at night. Operators are down to 22 to 25. We have the same if not more tools, we are creating more product, and our yield is at a record high. Everyone is doing more work across the board.

So I see this at my work, does it surprise me, no. This is how Japan and China and the other major Asian companies do it (but I know they pay their workers a lot less). This is what we are being told to strive for. Is there some automation at my work? Yes, only to start the correct jobs on the tools but people still load them, fix them, run them, and check them. That hasn't changed. Same amount of work just less people.

[sm_shock]

Frodownd.

Just kiddin' boys.  Interesting discussion which I will follow without participation as I have no farkin' clue.  All I know is I only buy rum in bottles smaller than 1.5L if they're on sale.

Well, If we're accepting anecdotal evidence, I can add plenty of my own  [sm_devil] ;)

But it was not a chart of one company - his, nor mine.

LOL.  I wrote that after your post addressing aske's OP and Spanky butted in line. 

Just farkin' about anyhoo. 

Don't let that bugger lean on ya just cus he's taller!  Spring an Irish attitude adjustment on em!  :D

tricky hickses.   i dont think the 'dems can/will do anything either.  they're just as influenced by korprit lobbies.   my point was really we should vote for neither, or not even at all

 [sm_thumbsup]

Don't know who you're calling taller, I may only have an inch on UB, about a foot on you though.

I was just making a personal observation based on what I see at my work. And I don't work at a small company unless you consider Texas Instruments small. They are doing other things that help grow profits and those do affect jobs (as in the number here in the US). While I don't completely disagree with you I would have to say I do have a close feel for at least one Korprit Merica.

actually, re-reading my last post, i was struck with a question that my memory of civics/gubmint/history etc   ... can't recall

what DOES happen if nobody votes in the national elections ?    the electors would get to choose the president still i guess,  incumbents in congress would retain?   what else?

My company has essentially the SAME technology as in 2000.  We do much more work with fewer people than we had then.

You'll always have at least one blind, party-devoted soul out there who'll pull a lever and spoil your shutout.

To my knowledge, there's no quorum-like requirement for federal elections.  Assuming you really could get NO ONE to vote, what is the tiebreaker?  Can't be any worse than the NFL wild-card crap.

Well poo, its not about a few of us - its about ALL of us (looking at worker productivity nationwide).  I wanted to avoid it, but since we're having fun sharing stories....

(full disclosure - the first company I was involved in was prior to the time frame graphed above, but its certainly been repeated ad nauseum since)

Company 1:
Upgraded the software that controls the robotics on a manufacturing line.  This allowed the line to be programmed faster and easier, as well as changed from one profile to another much faster.  Productivity increased - engineering time decreased.  The few workers watching the line did have shorter down times between runs - if ya wanna call that working harder.

Implemented a new robot that handled the same jobs with greater accuracy at twice the pace.  Productivity more than doubled, number of employees working harder = 0.

Company 2:
Replaced an aging communications network with a new one that had more bandwidth, less downtime, and was more easily managed.  Branch productivity increased, support of the network decreased (people were actually working LESS).  Now again, we're reducing employee wait time - so they are serving more clients faster, but not working harder to do it.  Kinda like moving from dial-up to cable Internet - you can visit more sites faster, but its not really more work.

Company 3:
Much the same as above - replaced a satellite communications network with a terrestrial one for better response times and increased upload speeds.  This allowed more robust applications to be delivered - increasing branch productivity significantly.  Branch head count did not increase, nor did the headcount and workload to support this new network and applications.

System replacement and the resulting downtime and support hassles reached a tipping point for a very important office product.  We're currently selecting a product to replace all of them with a newer, more stable, and more functional model.  Again, another tens of millions of dollars investment that will increase productivity without any increased workload (it should actually decrease it).  And none of these dollars will be included in any wage comparison.


All of these were significant investments for the companies - none of which are reflected in wage comparisons.  And of course, all of these people 'feel' like they are working harder to get more done, while all that was done was to decrease wait time/downtime, or eliminate support headaches (wasted time).  We're working smarter, not harder.

At a micro level, simple things like process improvements increase productivity - even with the same technology.  When I first started my most recent job, the higher level engineers (me) were not allowed the time they needed to look into new things - they were helping put out fires.  I/we did two things - implemented standards for repeatable tasks, and provided better training to the analysts dealing with support issues.  This led to faster issue resolution and faster implementations with less involvement from the engineers - who are now free to look into new things and test new products.  Productivity increased, head count and workload did not.  And no 'new' tools were required.  Examples of similar micro accomplishments are numerous.



Undoubtedly there are people working harder, I'm not saying thats a lie - particularly in the 2000-2002 years, the bubble burst and some people were laid off.  Those that stayed had to pick up the slack, and willingly did so to keep their jobs.  I'm sure we even have people working harder because of increased workloads that their company has not kept pace with workforce-wise.  All of this is going on, just not at a significant enough rate to explain the sizable productivity gains.  It has been a generally accepted position for many years that our increasing productivity is due in large part to working smarter (automation, technology, etc.) and less so because we're working harder.  Especially if you ask your parents, who will probably always hold true that they worked harder than we do today  ;)

So if you're in the IT business or high-tech manufacturing, technology investments likely increased productivity more than just bumping up worker load.

If you're an office drone ... it doesn't matter how fast the computer gets, I can still only type 50-70 wpm and much of my work involves thinking, not loafing while technology works for me.  Retail, food and beverage, in fact most service-based businesses ... I don't see technology making worker-life easier.  To the contrary, I'd expect workers are burdened mastering new equipment and new skills, just to keep up, if the technology even deploys in some industries.

Not to quibble here, and I certainly hate to expose some anti-corporation streak, but ... those who stay when belts are tightened pick up added job duties and don't receive added compensation.  When the lean times got a little fatter, companies did not generally swell their workforce back up to pre-lean levels.  Not while workers were still showing up and working 1.5 jobs for 1.0 pay, no matter how much they may bitch about it.  I've heard that story firsthand countless times from my many fake Internet friends.

My cat's breath smells like cat food.

There have been tremendous increases in copulation efficiencies and economies of scale in the agricultural sector owing to technological advances, but for unknown reasons, these have not translated well into the human sector.

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This is exactly what I see. In my case I even got a promotion in there and was not compensated for it. There are a lot of scare tactics going on. Stuff like "there are other people that would love to do your job" etc....

that pretty much describes our situation where i work. our production numbers have stayed at level or above, yet our employee numbers have been dwindling for the last one and a half years. work less employees harder for more hours per week, and save all the benefit money you would have been paying the additional workers. 

Automation has allowed business to be processed more quickly.  For example, in the insurance business when a customer somewhere in the world signs an app it can be immediately uploaded for underwriting and subsequent policy issue.  And the data warehousing benefits to managing the business to ensure profitability have been very significant as well. 

All of this has increased productivity and most times decreased workload.  Or like hobbit said allowed for smarter working.  Now your high level skilled employees that make sure all the automation works or all the data pulled is actually meaningful thus fix a lot of problems may work harder. 

However, your worker bee that now just pushes buttons, follows written procedure and getting less and less skilled and more and more specialized into his cage, is gaining no valuable knowledge to make him desired in the workforce.  What I mean is the goal of all this automation is for the most part to ensure you could pull a bum off the streets to do the worker bee jobs.  Therefore, those employees have no choice but to push that button for the rest of their lives since no other company cares about that specific set of experience.  So the more we dumbed down their job, the less they required in payment.  Anyone not in technical jobs or upper management is now mostly expendable. 

Hell my company has numerous people that have been here for 25+ years and still don’t make more than 40k a year in annual salary.  But as a private company we get to share in profits more with a nice all colleague bonuses.  Of course our annual salary is lowered because of that. 

Worker productivity was increasing at the pretty much the same rate from the '95-2000 period as well - and we all know that was a time of few layoffs and pretty good economic times.  Productivity only made a very slight 'jump' during the recession.  Even if we give this 'layoff affect' a generous 20-30% portion of the increase pie - we're still left with 70-80% of it due to other factors, mainly automation, technology, and those micro-level process improvements.

This is how anecdotal evidence can be misleading - we have some experiences with it and hear loads of stories about similar experiences.  We tell/hear few stories about other productivity increase factors - they are just not as interesting, and bad news sells better.  Based upon what we hear, we make judgments on the workforce as a whole.  Its a natural response, we all do it to some extent.  But you do have to step back and take a look at the whole picture to understand all of the affects.


Would be more interesting to see the graphs cover a longer time period - this one is too brief (and I have my assumptions as to why).