The Productivity Growth Slowdown
However in 1973 steady trend of climbing rates of productivity growth stopped cold. Between 1973 and 1995 measured growth in output per worker in U.S. economy grew at only 0.6 percent per year. The slowdown didn't affect the U.S. economy alone: the slowdown hit--to different degrees and with different effects--the other main economies of the world's industrial core in Japan, Western Europe and Canada as well.