[Iron Munro]

These numbers are close to meaningless in today’s environment.

Productivity up?

What is the relative effect on the economy of producing slightly more per manhour as opposed to the effect of more than 16% unemployed?

[muawiyah]

You miss the first point ~ DEFLATION ~ the AP writer has no idea what it is of course but the editor at Yahoo.com knows ~ he's just ignoring it.

I know what it is too.

Now, for you folks who hate the federal bureaucracy, a couple more quarters of productivity improvement and Obama will be cutting federal worker pay!

HISTORY NOTE: Somewhere around here I have the pen Franklin Roosevelt used to sign the first, last and only payraise he ever gave federal government employees.

[LS]

Well, obviously if you have massive unemployment, incremental, even solid, gains in productivity won't help immediately. What it says is that some of the bankruptcies and the collapse of GM have, as markets predict they would, had an effect: those who have jobs are doing them better.

And it's not just a case of you doing "your job and the guy who got fired," because that results in lowered productivity through burnout. America is STILL a phenomenally productive place, potentially.