Productivity Slowdown

Yale economist Stephen Roach has a wonderful piece on the slowdown in productivity observed in the US and elsewhere:

“In the US, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the length of the average workweek has held steady at about 34 hours since the advent of the Internet two decades ago. Yet nothing could be further from the truth: knowledge workers continually toil outside the traditional office, checking their email, updating spreadsheets, writing reports, and engaging in collective brainstorming. Indeed, white-collar knowledge workers – that is, most workers in advanced economies – are now tethered to their workplaces essentially 24 hours a day, seven days a week, a reality that is not reflected in the official statistics.

Productivity growth is not about working longer; it is about generating more output per unit of labor input. Any undercounting of output pales in comparison with the IT-assisted undercounting of working hours.” 
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/america-china-output-per-worker-productivity-paradox-by-stephen-s--roach-2015-06