Last month we released our newest report “Economic Growth: Comparing Metros, 2001-2006”. In that report we compared metro level Gross Domestic Product (GDP) among the top metros in the country. Today, we take one further step and look at GDP per employee. This should give us a reasonable proxy for employee productivity.
Historically we have claimed the average Kansas City worker is more productive than the national average. According to the 2006 data, this claim still holds. The average Kansas City area employee contributes $65,052.40 to the regions GDP. Nationally that figure is $63,335.48. However, when we compare Kansas City’s productivity to some of our peer metros, we are in the middle of the pack.
By comparison, each Denver area employee contributes nearly $10,000 more a year to its economy than do Kansas City area employees, on average.
Even more concerning is the change in productivity between 2001 and 2006. Kansas City slips behind the nation in terms of productivity growth over this period. If this trend continues, it puts our claim to being more productive than average in jeopardy.
So does this mean that Kansas City employees are getting lax? Are other metros employees working harder than us? No. It appears more likely that our recent productivity performance is tied to the type of industries we have here than our work habits, given that the the leaders in productivity are metros like San Jose, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington DC.
But this means that some of our peers have attracted or grown industries with greater numbers of “good jobs” than we have. What are those industries? Stay tuned for part 2.
No comments:
Post a Comment