In the U.S., American mangers are cooperating with the shop floor to minimize labor and maximize machines. Those few workers remaining on the payroll, scared s***less by the Great Recession, are only too happy to oblige their bosses. It's real cooperation to benefit the corporate bottom line.
"When the productivity growth comes, then watch out because that is when companies start not needing so much labor," Edmund Phelps, a Columbia University economist and Nobel laureate, said.
So which political party is going to be honest about this when they lament U.S. unemployment? Or will they keep saying that taxes and burdensome regulations are the problem?
What nobody will admit is that downsizing/efficiency projects are always an easy sell for middle-management, which is operating under assumptions of zero- or low-growth in consumer demand in the short term. Companies are basically making plans under the assumption that sales will be flat for the next few years. So of course efficiency projects are getting all their attention and capital investment.
By Craig Torres and Anthony Feld
November 24, 2010 | Bloomberg
No comments:
Post a Comment