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Discuss HN: Affects of Efficiency Increases on Economy

2 points by bherms ↗ HN
So I was recently sitting around watching an episode of Futurama -- namely, How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back -- and I got to thinking about bureaucracy and efficiency in the workplace. It's generally accepted that a large majority of people don't work at maximum capacity or efficiency during their day jobs. I think I even recall PG estimating that we generally work at around 30% of our max (source?). Every day I see articles and discussions on how we can increase our work efficiency and get the most out of our working hours. Clearly it makes sense for each of us to work better -- more free time, less stress, etc. It also makes sense for businesses to want this -- time is money, mistakes are bad, and unnecessary jobs arise out of operating inefficiency.

Where this thought gets interesting, though, is when you think about what would actually happen to our economy if we really did eliminate large amounts of efficiency in the workplace... It would stand to reason that by working more efficiently, many unnecessary jobs could be cut across the country. While that would save tons of money for corporations, it would also mean a greatly increased unemployment rate, which would surely be bad for economy. Others might argue, however, that this saved money would result in more money for research and exploring new technology which would ultimately lead to more jobs. It's all purely speculation, but the repercussions could lead to something slightly disturbing -- that slacking and inefficiency, to an extent, are actually quite helpful to the health of our economy. What do you think?

3 comments

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coffeenut
Marshall Brain, the founder of HowStuffWorks, wrote a short story taking just this topic to its absurd conclusion. The first part of the story begins with the elimination of this sort of inefficiency by using relatively dumb software to micromanage every minute of a worker's day (starting in fast food restaurants). A lot of the technology could really be implemented today (and some is; notice the headsets with disembodied computer voices you see in stores like Target today).

http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

bherms
Good read so far. Thanks! The story seems to be much like 1984 and is, in a sense, a much more extreme case of what I was talking about. I'm not suggesting we will or won't ever get to the point in Manna, but it struck me as funny that while we do see working more efficiently as a goal, that it could actually have serious negative effects for the health of our economy. It's interesting to think about.
coffeenut
I hear where you're coming from. I'm actually surprised at the 30% efficiency number; I would have guessed more like 5%-10%. I suppose it varies by industry. I expect minimum-wage workers are more efficient (they're almost always doing what they're paid to do), whereas white collar jobs like program management are less measurable, and people spend much wasted time not just surfing the web, but doing things like sitting in unnecessary meetings.

When I was doing PM work, I spent about 30+ hours a week in meetings which could generally have been dealt with in 30-45 minutes of focused discussion with a much smaller group of people.