More on that productivity thing

The productivity figures are in line with what I suspected, that we are in the midst of seizing genuine productivity gains through forced lay-offs. But let me add another point: one of the reason that employment is sticky is agency cost. In larger concerns line-managers do not have the incentive to cut costs by firing their own people. At a minimum, somebody ends up doing more work, often the manager. It takes pressure from above or the outside to get it to happen.

Also why I see productivity gains in government as being only the result of increased work and legislature-limited resources. Huge amount of untapped IT productivity gains there.