Americans are working harder–but don’t have much more in their paychecks to show for it.
According to the Labor Department, productivity growth averaged 5.6 percent over the year ending in third quarter 2002, the most recent quarter for which figures are available. That’s the fastest gain in productivity in nearly two decades, despite job losses in the millions. A total of 181,000 jobs were lost in 2002 after a 1.4 million drop in 2001.
“Productivity has grown more than output–we’re producing more with less labor,” said Robert D. McTeer, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas during a recent speech.
But workers’ higher output is not translating to bigger raises. Average hourly pay for production workers rose 3.2 percent in 2002–the weakest gain in seven years.
Still, wage growth was above the inflation rate. And many workers are just happy to have jobs, says Richard A. Chaifetz, CEO and chairman of the Chicago-based employee-assistance provider ComPsych.
“People understand they’re being expected to perform over levels [of] two or three years ago,” he said.
But the extra pressure does increase worker stress, said Chaifetz, who reports a 10 percent increase in call volume to companies’ employee assistance programs from a year ago.
Life of leisure?
Ohh . . . to be French. The food. The culture. The 35-hour workweek.
But many French are complaining that the shortened workweek, adopted in January 2000, doesn’t mean they’re working less, but working harder than before. Instead of ushering in an era of greater leisure and more jobs, workers complain they just have to squeeze the same amount of work into more hours.
U.S. workers on flex-time or part-time schedules may be able to relate to their counterparts across the Atlantic . . .
Live the dream
Is your dream to chuck the 9-to-5 rat race and stay at home with the kids? Author Joanne Watson has the solution: Work behind the scenes to boost your husband’s pay.
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Watson ‘s book, “How to Help Your Husband Make More Money So You Can Be a Stay-At-Home Mom” ($12.95, Warner Books), suggests a team approach to job hunting that has wives playing psychologists-job coaches-press agents. But we have to ask: When do you go from being a concerned partner to a nag?
Besides urging wives to determine whether their husbands are underpaid and to write “a list of things he is good at” to boost his confidence, the book tells women to build a husband’s network by buying nice personal stationery for him. “If he wins an award or has some great news to share, you can even help him make up an announcement letter or postcard that he can send out.”
Talk about junk mail.