Saturday, April 10, 2010

Lack of Demand?

Earlier I displayed some data on output and factor usage in the manufacturing and home construction industries. Those were clearly cases of lack of demand: people wanted to buy less of those items, so suppliers produced less of them and used less capital and labor in the process. It's no surprise that, say, a 20 percent reduction in what customers purchase would reduce usage of labor and capital by about 20 percent.

Manufacturing and home construction together were only about 15 percent of the overall private sector, so it worthwhile to look at the rest of the private sector industries. The chart below shows that rest of the industries are STILL PRODUCING at pre-recession levels. Unlike the home construction and manufacturing industries, these industries cannot (on average) blame their drastic labor cuts on a lack of production: they are still producing and earning real incomes like before, but have decided to do so with a much smaller workforce.

3 comments:

Tamerlane said...

How long can the smaller labor pool keep producing at elevated levels? Is it safe to suggest that many workers were laid off and those who wanted to keep their jobs were simply required to take on the terminated workers duties. How long will workers persist at this increased workload without increased compensation in another question?

Donald Pretari said...

"Unlike the home construction and manufacturing industries, these industries cannot (on average) blame their drastic labor cuts on a lack of production: they are still producing and earning real incomes like before, but have decided to do so with a much smaller workforce."

This sounds very close to what I was saying would occur in Dec. 2008 when you brought up the topic of productivity gains.

Don the libertarian Democrat

Larry said...

We see reduced labor supply. Do we see higher wages?