Is the Internet hurting productivity?

You’d think that the massive growth of the Internet would bring with it a massive growth in productivity. But the opposite is happening.

“A decade-long global decline in productivity growth threatens future competitiveness, profitability, wages, and living standards in both mature and emerging economies,” The Conference Board announced in its 2015 report on global productivity. The report was backed up by analysis from the Wall Street Journal which found productivity in the US had halved between the 1990s and the 2000s.

“A detailed analysis of different metrics since the mid-2000s shows the primary problem with productivity is not inefficient workers,” said Bart van Ark, The Conference Board chief economist. “Rather, companies and countries appear increasingly unable to translate investments in technology and innovation into timely gains in output.”

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