Productivity During the Recession
Rudy Karsan -
Performance
Thursday, July 02, 2009 1:27:06 PM
What is interesting about recent data released from the unemployment perspective is that, unlike in most recessions, productivity has not gone down. This is generally likely to mean one of two things: a) that people are working longer hours and their longer hours aren’t being documented or b) there have been a lot of layoffs in the general and administrative type of functions through our economy. If the latter has happened, it tells me that when the economy recovers, it’s going to come back solidly from a job perspective, because productivity generally suffers during recessions. And if it hasn’t in this one, then that’s because companies are really lean as far as their staff goes, and will result in their forcing themselves to begin to hire much sooner than they normally would in the wake of a recession such as this one.