On Wed, Dec 18, 2002 at 08:22:30PM -0600, Adam C. Lipscomb wrote: > According to labor statistics, productivity for American workers > continues to climb. I can understand how that is measured for > industries in which there is a measurable *thing* produced, such as > cars or toasters, but how do those statistics get determined for > nontangibles? Let's look at, say, software coders - how can you > measure their productivity?
My first reaction is -- every company produces a measurable thing (or is working towards it). That thing is money = revenue = sales. Everything is fungible to an economist or a finance guy. So, to first order, I would think productivity might reasonably be measured in dollars of revenue per worker. I'm sure there are lots of variations. The numerator could be revenue, gross profit, operating income, net income, etc. The denominator could be workers*hours, or maybe divided up into the type of work. But the key concept that I think you are looking for is the fungibility of labor in terms of something like revenues. -- "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.erikreuter.net/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
