# Productivity has increased massively. What the hell does that mean

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/productivity-has-increased-massively-what-the-hell-does-that-mean/552250>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 1, 2010, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/productivity-has-increased-massively-what-the-hell-does-that-mean/552250 "2010-09-01T13:26:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\
**Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/productivity-has-increased-massively-what-the-hell-does-that-mean/552250/21 "2010-09-02T17:32:29Z")

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> [@Wilbo523](#):
>
> The biggest reason its being mentioned and discussed is as the economy improves and US businesses increase production and sales, don’t expect employment to rise as would have been expected before these productivity gains. Which will have a dampening effect on the improvements to the US economy.

That’s true, but is definitely the pessimistic way of looking at it.

Increasing productivity numbers tend to precede increasing employment in the business cycle, since businesses will try to maximize what they can do with the current employees before they commit to hiring more. Most people also agree that the economy starts to improve just before hiring improves (again, because businesses are doing more with the current load of workers). Thus, productivity is one of the potential indicators that things are on their way up.

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