Welcome to Day 1 of Q2! For my tax friends – only two more weeks until you get your well deserved break. Meantime, let’s talk about work!

1.99 million cumulative workdays were lost last year because of work stoppages in the US.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), a “work stoppage” typically refers to a strike or a lockout that keeps people from their jobs — and companies from productivity.

2022 was an especially high year for work stoppages, according to the BLS, and it resulted in a lot of lost time. Specifically, there were 23 major work stoppages in 2022. For perspective, between the years 2002 – 2022, there were an average of 16 work stoppages per year. The lowest year ever was 5 in 2009 and the highest year for work stoppages was 1952 when there were 470.

In 2022, the largest was at the University of California where 48,000 teaching assistants, researchers, tutors and other graduate student instructors across the nine campus system went on strike at the suggestion of the United Auto Workers. This was the largest ever US higher education strike resulting in 1,272,000 cumulative days idle & lost work.

It’s important to note that the BLS doesn’t count a strike or lockout as a stoppage unless an incident affects at least 1,000 workers — so the actual numbers are potentially higher.

Fortunately, for the companies I work with, work lost to strikes and lockouts has not been an issue, but there are plenty of other reasons companies can suffer productivity loss, including, of course, being understaffed for key positions.

I can’t stop strikes from happening, but I can certainly help your company with the latter problem. Drop me a note or give me a call!

#work #productivity #Q2