When Down Is Good: Productivity Trends, Plus Not-So-Random Acts of Kindness

Yes, the unemployment rate is daunting and behind it is real disruption, worry and pain for real people. But there was one bit of promising news at a briefing for New Hampshire lawmakers Monday. In New England, productivity has dropped along with employment. That’s actually good. It suggests that machines are not replacing people, which leaves hope that when demand comes back, the jobs will follow.

And there are glimmers that demand in some areas is creeping up. Bob Landman owns H and L Instruments in North Hampton. He deals in the electronics that connect one fiber optic cable to another. Landman is feeling bullish.

LANDMAN: Overseas in Asia, we’re seeing orders that we haven’t seen in a couple of years”

Landman also does a lot of business in the energy field. He hopes to get some of the stimulus related work that’s taking shape there.

As we often do in these economic notes, we draw from the Working It Out blog. That’s where this next item emerged.

Unemployment is hard but it can bring out the best in people. A guy we’ll call Paul lives in a town near the Massachusetts border. Paul got laid off from a good paying job at big firm and when he hasn’t been busy finding a new income, he’s been doing a lot of community work.

He kept notes and organized things on a laptop he brought to every meeting. But the laptop belonged to his daughter and when she headed off to school, so did the laptop. Paul says, people noticed that it was harder for him to keep on doing what he had been.

PAUL: One day there was box on my stairs. And, uh, I was curious because we didn’t order anything and there was nothing on the box that was giving me any information other than it said PC Connection on it.”

As you might guess, inside was a laptop but there was no name of the buyer. Paul called PC Connection who at first told him nothing but then said there was a name that was buried in the paperwork. The name was that of his neighbor, who initially denied but then fessed up to being the culprit.

PAUL: Outside of my family, this is the nicest and most generous thing anyone has done for me. And I don’t what to say or how to repay that. Just truly shocked.”

People will need to pull together a while longer. Economists expect the unemployment rate to keep rising. One consequence of that in New Hampshire, there are now nearly 92,000 people on Food Stamps – up more than 12 thousand from this spring.

With this round up of the week’s economic news, I’m Jon Greenberg.