Quote:
|
Firing does not improve productivity.
|
No. That's not right. It does not necessarily increase productivity, but it often does.
http://papers.nber.org/papers/w9530
Quote:
|
In the short run, productivity gains help earnings at the expense of employment, and that's not a situation that we should want to last," said Sung Won Sohn, chief economist at Wells Fargo & Co. in Minneapolis.
|
Basic econ 101 here. When you go to do layoffs, you fire your most inefficient, least productive laborers. Average productivity rises, overall output is usually lower. Morale is certainly an issue, especially in white collar positions. But don't tell me that a service busines, like a resturant won't try to keep the same number of tables even if they have to fire a waitress. Google for "jobless and recovery" or "productivity, increase, and layoff". Also, try looking around at Nber.org, a site with working papers by some of the top economists in the feild. You'll see what i'm talking about.
You make a fair point of on-job employee training, but you miss the point about technology. Spending on technology is NOT an operating expense. It is an investment, a purchase of a durble good. Those purchases are not recovering like we might hope...
http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/newsrel/gdpnewsrelease.htm
It's table one. Only in the last quarter has there been any recovery, and it's got a ways to go still.