Final answer:
Productivity can be measured in several ways, with GDP per worker being a common gauge. In the U.S., productivity is often calculated by the dollar value per hour a worker contributes, excluding areas such as government work and farming due to measurement difficulties.
Step-by-step explanation:
Alternative Measures of Productivity
Yes, there are various measures by which we can assess productivity besides the amount produced per hour of work. Productivity is essentially the output per unit of input. A common measure often used is the gross domestic product (GDP) divided by the total number of workers, which gives us GDP per worker. For example, in the United States, productivity per worker can be calculated by the dollar value per hour the worker contributes to the employer's output. However, this method does not include government workers because their output isn't sold on the market, making it difficult to measure productivity in that sector.
It also usually excludes the farming sector, which is a smaller portion of the economy. An example of productivity over time can be seen in an index of output per hour with a base year; if the index was 50 in 1972 and rose to around 106 in 2014, it indicates that workers have more than doubled their productivity over this period.