Il y a des gains de productivité étonnants dans les lumières de Noël:
As a teenager in the mid-1980s, David VanderMolen's job was to buy and install holiday lights for his family's Charlotte, Michigan home. Each year his parents would give him $10, enough for two 35-light strings, each 20 feet long, from Kmart. If the weather wasn't too bad, a string of lights would last about three years. VanderMolen eventually built up a collection of 350 miniature lights, enough to make his house the most elaborately decorated in the neighborhood.Ceux qui craignent éternellement la disparition des emplois manufacturiers devraient voir qu'il se crée présentement des emplois qu'on n'aurait même pas pu imaginer il y a quelques années. Installer des lumières de Noël est maintenant rendu une occupation payante durant l'hiver pour les paysagistes:Today, that display would be nothing special. You can buy a 100-light string, nearly 50 feet long, for $2.44 at Wal-Mart. Even without adjusting for inflation, VanderMolen's old $10 annual budget would cover more lights in a single year than he could accumulate over seven years in the 1980s. Today's cheaper lights, mostly made in China, also last longer.
Not everyone wants to climb around on the roof, however, and not everyone has the skills to put together an attractive display. More and more homeowners are contracting out the lighting work, creating satisfying jobs that never existed before. It's part of the long-term trend toward greater and greater specialization. The business also illustrates just how experience improves productivity even in service industries.Christmas Décor, based in Lubbock, Texas, has more than 350 franchise locations throughout the U.S. and Canada. The company estimates that its franchisees do more than $32 million in holiday light business a year. (At least four other national companies offer similar franchises.) Most franchisees are landscaping companies looking for ways to keep working through the slow winter months. Like the inventory controls that have improved efficiency in manufacturing, adding a holiday lighting service allows landscapers to avoid the boom and bust of hiring and laying off employees.