<<Output per hour worked, in concept, which in practice means dividing inflation-adjusted sales by the number of hours worked. The numbers I quoted were for manufacturing; no one knows how to deal with services - how do you quality-adjust the "output" of an investment banker or a pedicurist?>>
Doug, my understanding is that total national output divided by work hours gives a meaningful picture of productivity even if directly measuring service-sector productivity is dicey. For example, some say there's been a redistribution of measured productivity growth from services to manufacturing as manufacturing companies have shed and outsourced some of their low-productivity-growth operations, like custodial services. That's why manuf. productivity has been growing a lot faster lately and services have been growing a lot slower.
Seth Ackerman