New Study Says Employees Aren’t Getting Enough Done At Work
A new study says that employee productivity is down more than 4% in the United States
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Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics says productivity within the United States workforce is declining. The slump among employees is partially due to the quiet quitting trend which has taken over social media in the last few months, as well as economic ennui. The latter settled in among workers after the experiences of the last few years, and that listlessness is showing up in the numbers, according to ZipRecruiter Chief Economist, Julia Pollack.
Approximately 20 million employees lost their jobs in a matter of weeks as the pandemic plunged the economy into disarray. At the time, a strong work ethic, good performance, or company loyalty wasn’t enough to prevent anyone from being axed. Then a few months later, the economic tides changed as businesses became desperate to hire. Firings and layoffs even reached historic lows, as inexperienced staffers were brought on at a higher wage.
But existing employees were often worked to the point of burnout, while employers overlooked mistakes from new recruits that would have cost them their jobs in the past. As a result, people came away from the situation feeling like the connection between working hard and being rewarded was broken. “That’s really discouraging to top performers,” Pollack told NPR. Now, the measure of how much companies produce for each hour worked has seen the biggest drop on record.
Employee productivity is down 4.1% on an annualized basis, the biggest decline since the government started recording the data in 1948. Since then, productivity within the United States had been on a steady upward slope, until now. Pollak explained that several other factors may be contributing to the drop in productivity, but she still believes burnout, frustration, and, economic ennui are part of it.
And if this trend among employees continues, the consequences could be very serious. Productivity is the fuel of any economy and if it continues to decline, the local economy will shrink. That means quality of life will go down, opportunities will disappear, and innovation and ideas will find new homes. For example, Japan has seen a years-long slump in productivity due to a population decline. And the result has been two decades of economic stagnation, according to recent data.
Economic ennui can create a very bad cycle that is hard to turn around, Pollak warned. Which means productivity may continue to decline. Once employees start thinking that everything is futile and pointless, it becomes very difficult for companies to get them to believe that hard work pays off. Especially since the days of working at a firm for 50 years and retiring with a pension and gold watch, have been replaced with a text saying your wages will be cut.
So it’s not surprising that many employees are quiet quitting as the concept effectively redraws work boundaries to the job description. This means people aren’t thinking about work during their downtime and don’t do more than is required. Instead, they’re dedicating that energy to more meaningful elements of their lives which leads to improved well-being.
