U.S. Workers World’s Most Productive
American workers stay longer in the office, at the factory, or on the farm than their counterparts in Europe and most other rich nations, and they produce more per person over the year. ... Productivity ... is found by dividing the country’s gross domestic product by the number of people employed. ... Only part of the U.S. productivity growth ... can be explained by the longer hours Americans are putting in. ... [The U.S.] also beats all 27 nations in the European Union, Japan, and Switzerland in the amount of wealth created per hour of work. ... The U.S. employee put in an average 1,804 hours of work in 2006 ... compared with 1,407.1 hours for the Norwegian worker and 1,564.4 for the French. It pales,
however, in comparison with the annual hours worked per person in Asia, where seven economies—South Korea, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, China, Malaysia and Thailand—surpassed 2,200 average hours per worker. But those countries had lower productivity rates. ...
a. What is the difference between productivity in this article and per capita real GDP?
b. Identify and correct a confusion between levels and growth rates of productivity in the news article.
c. If workers in developing Asian economies work more hours than Americans, why are they not the world’s most productive?