Who is benefiting from improving production efficiency?

ByJames Yu

There is a task to be done within the period for any job, but when working on workProduction efficiencyIf it improves, it will make it possible to accomplish such task quickly. Furthermore, if the task can be done quickly, the working hours of the week should gradually become shorter ... .... Human "production efficiency" has improved exponentially with advances in technology, but where is the influence appearing?

Productivity and the Workweek - shorter hours
http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/


If you work 8 hours a day on 2 weekly holidays, the working hours per week will be 40 hours. Based on this "40 hours" we will look at improvement of human production efficiency so far. For example, the productivity when an average worker in 1950 worked 40 hours a week was equivalent to that when the average worker in 2003 worked 11 hours a week. this isAmerican Labor Statistics BureauIt is thought that similar results are occurring in developed countries because it is the data in the United States collected in the United States, but the production efficiency is rising in the same proportion in Europe and Japan.

The graph below shows how much work per week is required for average workers in each year to produce as much as average based on the productivity when the average worker worked for 40 hours in 1950 Graph showing whether there is. As you can see in the graph, in the mid-1970s production efficiency has been improved enough to produce the same amount of time in half the time of 1950.


According to a poll conducted in the U.S., it is known that those who were living in the American country in the 1950s felt that "they are being filled" rather than the contemporary Americans. Certainly, many studies have found that "Increase in incomes raises people's happiness", but it is a story till "a level where fundamental desires are satisfied", and when it reaches a certain amount or more, it is proportional to it It is said that happiness will not rise.

As time goes on, production efficiency has improved, but since 1975 the rate of improvement in production efficiency has been slowing down. The labor of 40 hours by average workers in 1950 corresponded to 20 hours of 1975, but the labor of 40 hours by average workers in 1975 was 23 hours of 2003 In addition, the labor of 40 hours in 1990 is 29 hours of 2003.


Important facts about the relationship between improvement in production efficiency and the happiness of workers are overlooked. That is, "Since production efficiency has improved for a long time, it should be able to rapidly reduce job hours while maintaining high productivity." This should be feasible, but somehow not done.

Then, who is benefiting from improved production efficiency?

According to the statistics of the US government, the national income of "workers" seems to remain constant over the past 50 years. However, in this "worker" campaign, billionaire like Bill Gates is included, which suggests that income disparities in America are more advanced than before. And this expansion of income gap also means that many of the general workers are not able to receive the benefits of increased production efficiency.

Until a certain level of standard of living, even a slight increase in production efficiency has the effect of dramatically reducing human working hours. However, the present age has exceeded that level, and since production efficiency has improved, business time will not decrease in proportion to it. Although the improvement rate of production efficiency has been low in recent years, it is said that human production efficiency will continue to improve until 2050.