"Jim" wrote in message
news:Yrb6b.368926$YN5.247563@sccrnsc01...

Exactly! Companies do not like to lay off workers. They want to make
sure that these
are not little farts in the economy they are seeing before they hire more
workers....the last thing they want is to have to lay them off because
they misread the
indicators. That is why productivity is up.

WRONG! The reason productivity is up is because people are working longer
hours and taking fewer holidays in an attempt to keep their jobs and
livelyhoods.