Monday, September 03, 2007

Some Good Economic News

Fittingly on Labor Day, this item is about labor. A UN report on labor productivity finds that we are the most productive country in the world when measuring GDP and the labor force. We produce $63,385 of GDP per worker, Ireland is second at $55,896 and Luxembourg third at $55,641. Measuring on an hourly basis we come in second (at $35.63) to Norway (at $37.99) with France third with $35.15.

While we work a lot more hours per year than Europeans (1800 to 1500), we work a lot less than many Asian countries including China where the average person works 2200 hours per year.

1 comment:

Flimsy Sanity said...

As one drug rep said, "Statistics are like prisioners, torture them long enough and they will tell you anything you want to hear". If some peasant in China works for 50 cents an hour and the CEO, middle management and distributor in America make $10, $2, and $1 on that same Chinese persons production and the statistics compare incomes, the middle men will look more productive even though they produced nothing.