There is a lack of appreciation for what s happening in Silicon Valley because we don t have a good way to measure it.
— Hal Varian, Google s chief economist, on the worries about low U.S. productivity. The Wall Street Journal notes that Varian and others in the tech industry aren t too keen on the way productivity has been measured for a long time — output per hour of labor toward goods and services that people pay for, and pegged to the gross domestic product — because it doesn t take into account the productivity that results from technology that has made our lives easier and possibly makes us more productive. That technology may come in the form of free, time-saving apps, for example, that make it easier to hail rides, find parking, order food — or search engines that eliminate the need for a trip to the library. But where does that time go? If it goes toward leisure and watching videos of frolicking sea otters, as the Washington Post s Wonkblog notes, maybe it s true that we aren t being very productive.
In June, the Labor Department reported that U.S. productivity fell 3.1 percent in the first quarter of 2015, following a 2.3 percent drop in the previous quarter.
Above: Screenshot from a YouTube search of sea otters.
