VIVA PRODUCTIVITY!!!
On the radio, in our seminars and on the speaking circuit, I have been talking for the past couple of years about the importance of productivity. It is defined, if you recall your Econ. 101, as output-per-worker-hour. It is desperately important in maintaining the low inflation health of our economy.
In the second quarter, the labor department gave us some news recently that almost couldn't have been better. They said that productivity soared at its fastest rate in seventeen years, while the key gauge of inflation fell for the first time in sixteen years. That's really saying something. Specifically, workers' productivity, or output-per-worker-hour, surged 5.3% in the second quarter. The fantastic showing put productivity gains for the past year at 5.1%, the best performance since the third quarter of 1983. Yes, 1983. Also in the second quarter, the strong productivity gain pushed unit labor cost, a key gauge of inflation pressures, down by .1%. That's the first time on a one-year basis that labor costs have declined in the last sixteen years.
All these figures are even more impressive when one notes that from 1973 through 1975 productivity dragged along at an average yearly gain of just over 1%. Now, as we double, triple and more on productivity, no wonder we're so healthy economically. Productivity gains are rightfully being credited for letting the economy grow without sparking inflation. More efficient labor lets producers pay higher wages without passing the added cost on to the consumer. Again, remember; THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH PAYING A WORKER MORE AS LONG AS THAT WORKER IS MORE PRODUCTIVE.
The news on productivity adds to the new economy or new paradigm school of economic thinking. This time it is different; this time, thanks to technology and the tremendous push of American businesses investing in new plants and new equipment, we are becoming more efficient, and it is all making an economic difference. No one has ruled out the business cycle and no one says that we can't have slumps, or that the stock market can't fade, but by and large, our economy continues in an economic sweet spot that this author thinks should continue for most of this decade.
Speaking of "viva," viva single professional women! That's based on the information coming out of a new study entitled "The Single Female Consumer." The study, done by Young & Rubicam's Forecasting Group, says single professional women are the new yuppies of this generation, with the strongest consumer clout in the world. The report says, "Women living alone increasingly comprise the strongest consumer bloc in much the same way that yuppies did in the 80s." Stating the obvious, the report says that corporate America had better start catering to this growing group, or they're missing the boat.
The study says that single professional women show three basic characteristics that marketers ought to be aware of; first, they are brand-loyal, second, they influence their friends in buying decisions, and third, they are very information oriented.
The report notes that this group of women are putting off or foregoing marriage, contrary to a popular misconception that a majority of single women are 20-somethings waiting desperately to get married. The study indicates that there is a growing group that have chosen to delay marriage in favor of a career. In our country the number of women living alone has risen by a third over the last 15 years, and now totals about 30 million. The report goes on to say that in addition to this newly discovered phenomenon, you can add in longer life spans and higher divorce rates, and find that more women than ever will live alone at some time during their life, and as the group grows, obviously their financial clout grows as well. Single women, according to the report, are more likely than married women to go for big-ticket items-- 60% of them, in fact, own their own homes, and are more likely to indulge themselves in things like expensive vacations, cars, computers and of course, cell phones. So, viva professional women everywhere, and from this writer's point of view, viva women in all walks of life, because as every man knows deep down, in one way or another, they civilize us.
(Tom Butenhoff is a First Vice President with J. E.
Liss & Company in Milwaukee. The views are his and not necessarily
those of Liss Financial Services or the Job Connection/Hiring
Network.)