31.01.2006 | Dr. Uwe Büchner

„Entlassungsproduktivität“ – "lay-off-productivity", elected non-word of the year 2005

Every year a jury of linguists elects the non-word of the year in Germany. Non-word in the sense of the most outrageous, nonsensical or euphemistic word or phrase. This year it is “Entlassungsproduktivität”, literally translated lay-off – productivity, thus indicating, that laying off people is a means of productivity increase.

Many German companies had to lay off employees in 2005 because they didn’t have sufficient orders to keep all employees busy. In the global economy obviously there were competitors who could offer the same products or services cheaper – they were more productive.

The German companies in question faced the challenge – to become competitive again – to increase their own productivity. The lay offs which took place in this context have coined the word “Entlassungsproduktivität” and helped turn it into the non-word of the year 2005.

In my opinion, the jury of linguists that awarded this „title“ did not understand these events economically the right way. As the renowned Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper also explains, the idea of the economists inventing this phrase was precisely to point out that simply laying off people does not increase productivity.

Successful companies know by experience that productivity can only be increased by making production processes continuously more and more efficient and effective. The most profitable German automotive company, the Porsche AG has demonstrated this in the most impressive way over the past years. Significant annual productivity increases are a testimony to this.

We, at PQ+, know from our projects that productivity increases, as Porsche demonstrates them, are within reach of the majority of the German manufacturing industry. Specifically our proprietary method for productivity improvement, based on video evaluation with the AviX system can lead to productivity increases starting at 20% and actually exceeding 40% in many cases. True productivity increased in such a way enables the company to successfully compete and get more orders to avoid laying off, or even create new employment.

It goes to show that the right understanding of the non-word of the year 2005, and the necessary consequences, could in fact contribute to make Germany more competitive. Taken as such, the choice of the Jury for the non-word of 2005 could even have a positive impact for our country.

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