America's productivity boom started before AI, and a Stanford economist who decoded the Great Resignation says working from home is the reason why

"“I never thought I'd see this many years of really high productivity,” Powell said in a March press conference."

"In trials, researchers found working from home has led to increased productivity because workers are saving time on commuting and general office time wasting. Bloom wrote in a post on LinkedIn earlier this week that working from home supports business creation and increases the labor supply by allowing more people to participate in the workforce."

"In an email to Fortune, Bloom also noted the data show “a clear post-2020 surge in productivity growth exactly when WFH [work from home] ramped up.”"

Output for non-farm businesses has risen about 2% per year over the past five years, faster than the roughly 1% productivity growth seen during much of the 2010s. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has expressed surprise at the length of the high productivity period. Nicholas Bloom links the surge to work-from-home policies adopted after the pandemic rather than to AI. Trials and research attribute higher productivity to time saved from commuting and reduced office time wasting. Bloom also connects work-from-home to business creation and a larger labor supply by enabling more people to participate in the workforce. Data show a post-2020 productivity increase that aligns with the ramp-up of work-from-home. Meanwhile, many large firms are reversing flexible work, requiring full in-office schedules at more than half of Fortune 100 companies.

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