Word: man-hours
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...economy's most vexing ailments is a slump in productivity-that measure of output per man-hour that is the best gauge of national economic efficiency. When labor, materials and machines are managed effectively and productivity rises, more goods and services are turned out. Managers can raise wages without adding to production costs or boosting prices. Indeed, a sustained rise in productivity is essential if the U.S. is ever to quell inflation while expanding its economy fast enough to meet its needs for more job opportunities and improved housing, education and medical services...
Labor unions have seen to it that wages go only one way: up. Manufacturers sometimes can offset the higher costs by raising output per man-hour; but service industries, which account for more than 40% of the economy, find that difficult. And as U.S. industry grows more concentrated, businessmen can raise prices more confidently than they could if there were more competitors around who might undercut them...
...moderate" settlements that other major unions have agreed to this year. Increases in rubber, oil, trucking and apparel have averaged no more than 7%. But 7% seemed tolerable because the strong productivity gains that accompany a surging economy held production costs down. As the economy slows, however, output per man-hour will grow at a lower rate. Even if labor is moderate in its demands, production costs and prices will go up, and 7% pay gains will be harder to accept. If the unions decide to go for broke, a cost-push inflation could well be added to the present...
...more interesting phenomena that are happening in Cambridge 200,000 times. One thinks of Julia Child's 200,000th crepe suzette, or John Finlev's 200,000th letter of recommendation, or Harry Parker' 200,000th ce-cold morning on the river, or B and G's 200,000th lost man-hour, or ex-Dean Dunlop's 200,000th committee meeting--each must be nearing the mark about now. Far more interesting. John Paul Russo Assistant Professor of English
...more fashionable worries in U.S. business is that a "productivity crisis," a slowdown in the growth of output per man-hour, is crippling American ability to compete against foreign industry. Some figures compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, however, indicate that this fear is largely unfounded. In 1971, the BLS reports, unit labor costs-the figure that represents how much productivity gains have softened the impact of wage increases-rose only 2.7% in U.S. manufacturing. That was less than half the rate of the increase in Japan, Canada and some Western European industrial nations. Although the biggest reason...