Sweeping financial cutbacks since the beginning of this recession have led to the popularity of the phrase “do more with less.”

The newest statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggest that American workers are getting less money for doing more work.

Part One: Productivity Shoots Up

(For statistical purposes, “productivity” is understood to be the amount of product made per man hour – in other words, how efficiently American businesses are producing goods.)

Overall productivity rates for the second quarter looked like this:

• 6.4 percent increase in the business sector
• 6.3 percent increase in the nonfarm business sector
• 5.3 percent increase in manufacturing
• 3.9 percent increase in durable goods manufacturing
• 2.0 percent increase in nondurable goods manufacturing

What does this mean? Basically, people worked fewer hours and produced more goods.

In other words, American workers intensified their time spent at the office or factory.

Part Two: Work Hours Drop

So how much less did we as a nation work in the second quarter of 2009, compared to the first? The numbers paint a somewhat gloomy picture.

• In the business sector, hours worked fell by 7.5 percent for all members (proprietors, employers and unpaid family workers), compared to last quarter
• In the nonfarm business sector, hours worked fell by 7.6 percent
• In the manufacturing sector, hours worked fell by 14.4 percent (19.6 percent for durable goods and 5.3 percent for nondurable goods)

These figures probably aren’t surprising, considering the hundreds of thousands of layoffs and forced part-time work that have plagued the U.S. since the recession began.

Part Three: Pay Dips

The last part of the productivity puzzle comes from looking at how compensation for this increased work has changed since the last quarter.

In the business and nonfarm business sector, compensation has fallen since last quarter (by 1.2 percent and 1.1 percent, respectively) – in the manufacturing sector, it’s actually risen 4.4 percent.

Bottom Line: Many of Us Hanging onto Jobs, But Working More

These numbers illustrate a trend unsurprising to anyone working or looking for a job: employed Americans are apparently happy to be working at all, whether or not their salaries and work hours are better than they were a few months ago.

All of this extra work and less pay has many people considering filing bankruptcy.

Additional Resources
Bureau of Labor Statistics Report: Productivity and Costs, Second Quarter 2009

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