Word: man-hours
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...sometimes a fun-house mirror of the economy, but now they seem to be reflecting the real world without too much distortion. To cite only some figures released last week: new orders to factories rose 5.3% in December; sales of new houses gained 6.3%; worker productivity, or output per man-hour, leaped 2.7% in 1992 for the biggest gain in 20 years. In spite of continuing layoffs at some of the country's largest employers, even the job market looks suddenly brighter. The months of what has ironically been termed "jobless prosperity" may be ending: unemployment in January fell...
...benefits that are rare in the trade -- life and health insurance, college-tuition aid and at least two weeks of paid vacation -- he has kept annual turnover to around 57%, vs. 200% to 300% for the industry. Not surprisingly, Guardsmark guards don't come cheap: typically $16 per billable man-hour, more than twice the industry average. "My impression is that Guardsmark's screening and supervisory standards are better than the competition's," says Robert McCrie, the security business's leading newsletter publisher. "That also prevents it from becoming the largest company...
...runs Professional Security Bureau, a midsize guard company with offices stretching from Boston to Miami. Says industry consultant Francis Hamit: "Clients often don't want to pay for training, and the security companies cannot really afford to. I've seen accounts lost to lowball bidders for 5 cents per man-hour...
...economy as another factor behind the high hopes for stable prices. These include: increased foreign competition in industries like autos and steel; deregulation, which has led to more price competition in airlines and trucking; and, of great importance, prospects for renewed growth in productivity, or output per man-hour...
Economists debate to this day about what caused the Great Depression. A prevailing view, persuasively argued by John Kenneth Galbraith, is that the technological increases in productivity throughout the 1920s (up 43% per factory man-hour) were not matched by increases in wages and thus in the public's capacity to consume (factory pay rose less than 20%). The collapse of the overinflated stock market therefore started a downward spiral in both demand and the ability to pay. Conservative economists like Milton Friedman, on the other hand, blame the Federal Reserve System for failing to expand the money supply...