A story in the Washington Post reports a severe drop in productivity in 2022. They wonder why while talking about remote work and flexible schedules.
It’s not rocket science. People aren’t being productive because they don’t have to show up to work. In the immortal words of Red Foreman, “If it wasn’t work they wouldn’t call it work. They’d call it, super wonderful crazy fun time! Or skippity doo!”
In the first half of 2022, productivity — the measure of how much output in goods and services an employee can produce in an hour — plunged by the sharpest rate on record going back to 1947, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
U.S. workers have gotten way less productive. No one is sure why. – Washington Post
The productivity plunge is perplexing, because productivity took off to levels not seen in decades when the coronavirus forced an overnight switch to remote work, leading some economists to suggest that the pandemic might spark longer-term growth. It also raises new questions about the shift to hybrid schedules and remote work, as employees have made the case that flexibility helped them work more efficiently.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/31/productivity-down-employers-worried-recession/