Figure 1-16 



Real Gross Domestic Product per Employed 

 Civilian, for Selected Countries Compared 

 with the United States, 1960-74 



(Indexes, United States = 100) 

 100 



90 



80 



70 



60 



40 — 



20 



United States 



United Kingdom ^^ 





^ Japan 



J_ 



I I I I 



1960 '65 



SOURCE: U.S. Department of Labor. 



72 



Product per employed civilian". Measured in 

 these terms, the level of U.S. productivity 

 exceeded that of France, Japan, West Germany, 

 and the United Kingdom throughout the 1960- 

 74 period (figure 1-16). Gains in productivity, 

 however, were larger in the four other coun- 

 tries, with the result that the U.S. lead diminish- 

 ed significantly. By 1974, the productivity levels 

 of France and West Germany were only 20-25 

 percent lower than the United States. Japan 

 gained the most in productivity, but was still 

 some 40-45 percent below the U.S. level in 1974. 



Trends in productivity are more commonly 

 measured in terms of output per man-hour. The 

 use of this index does not imply that labor alone 



is responsible for productivity growth; output 

 per man-hour may also be influenced by factors 

 such as technological advances, scale of produc- 

 tion, and management effectiveness. This index 

 is developed for each country separately, and is 

 used to measure the change in productivity over 

 time in that country; it does not permit 

 comparisons of the actual productivity levels of 

 different countries. 



This indicator is presented in figure 1-17 for 

 manufacturing industries in the five countries. 

 The U.S. productivity gain between 1960-74 is 

 the smallest of these five countries (60 percent) 



23 



